


Fate of the World

by MrAH2010



Category: Fate/stay night (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-04-25 10:43:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14376987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrAH2010/pseuds/MrAH2010
Summary: When given the chance to save humanity from extinction EMIYA manages to blow the chance completely. Now Shirou is stuck in the past and must change the world for the better. What happens when he gets drawn into the Arthurian Legend in the making? Will he rise to the occasion or be nothing more than a footnote of history? Slow Build





	1. A Wish To Change The World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Fate of the World! 2.0  I hope that you’ll come and enjoy the journey as Shirou adventures across the past. For new and old readers, if you find yourself confused or interested about the historical context, there will be (eventually) a historical database of sorts at the end of the 1'st Arc.  
> Anyway, Enjoy the story.

 

 

Mid-1st Millennium CE

A nameless monk sat in an abbey, it combined the grand architecture of Ancient Rome, and Greece and reinforced with the grandest golden age architecture from the present.

He had received a commission from his king. To document the history of the nation. He was to gather everything he could and chronicle everything. Not exaggerations, not myth. He was the most respected chronicler and was writing fact, writing history. The king and elder advisors could remember some of the tales from long ago, but there was so much a single mind could recall.

He had gathered all of the primary and secondary documents he could get his hands on. He opened the great gold lined book that this was to documented in. Immediately the first entry was outrageous, but the king himself declared that this was fact. Having no reason or right to argue, he wrote it down.

This was the story of The Fate of the World.

 

* * *

 

February 15th, 2004 CE (Fate/Stay Night:  Fate Route [?])

The growing glow of the dawn could be seen behind the mountain ridge that surrounded Fuyuki City. Towering over the rest of the city sat a mountain temple where our young hero stood. The 5th Holy Grail War had recently come to a close and Shirou stood atop it all, the mountain, the city, the war: victorious. It had been a long and arduous journey; he was battered, bruised, yet still alive.

He had managed to overcome that wicked and false priest and destroy him; his corrupted soul was dissolving into the faux grail. Never could have believed that such cruelty could manifest itself in a single being, but he had triumphed against the darkness. He was exhausted, both emotionally and physically; his body burning from the effort of just standing. He could feel the fatigue of the night catching up to him all at once, it’s black tendrils forming around the edge of his vision. Despite the temptation to faint on the spot, he knew that there was one last thing that that he must do before he could rest.

Across the courtyard of Ryuudou Temple, the other victor of the Holy Grail War stood atop the city. After nearly one and ½ millennia of suffering and pain, she had accomplished what she had sworn to do so long ago. She had finally obtained the Holy Grail. Where all of her knights (and she herself in her mortal[sih] life) had failed, she had finally emerged victorious. It had been a long and winding journey, full of betrayals, grief and anguish, but she had done it.

Yet this victory was slightly hollow; walking into this she had been fairly certain that this was not the cup that Jesus of Nazareth had drunk from, but in fact a fake. However, her promise to world had been fulfilled. A second slap to the face was this false priest who had desecrated all things holy by merely existing. In her dreams she had envisioned a holy and powerful relic, but instead she was greeted by a black and corrupted illusion. The final insult still lay before her, for she had one final thing to accomplish. "I will destroy the Holy Grail, that is my role." her voice rang out across the temple grounds, despite the slight regret, she knew what must be done. It was her duty, if not for herself, at least for her Master and his world. She would fade from this world even if the grail was not destroyed, but the consequences of either of them wishing upon it would spell disaster for the inhabitants of this world.

Despite the request from Saber to complete her quest, Shirou’s mind was assailed from all sides and torn by a multitude of emotions, he stood there unable to make a decision; so, in the end, he stood there, motionless, only able to simply observe her image.

Last time she had destroyed the grail it had been forced upon her by another master. The ultimate betrayal. She had understood nothing then and only time had healed those wounds. Things were different this time; this time she was in full agreement that she must destroy this abomination, but she needed her master to command it. She had to, she could feel it tempting her with its promise of unlimited power.

Not looking back, she asked once again, "Master, please give me the order. I cannot destroy it without your order. Use your last command spell" Her voice cut like steel through the cold morning air.

_Wish upon me._

_You can have anything you desire and more._

_A new king._

_Or perhaps another chance?_

_A chance for happiness._

_Save everyone._

The grail so desperately wanted to be used. The magnificent glow of the artifact revealed  not a trace of the taint held within. What simple human could even contemplate resisting the temptation of such a great prize?

Once again, Shirou found that he was unable to give the command to allow her to be finally free. As a King of Knights who fought with honor she had to right to finally die. Not a death where she would be forced back to that terrible place and being forced to anguish on that battle-scarred hill, but to go out on her own terms. Despite all this, he still found himself paralyzed by the situation.

Saber turned around slowly, her voice softening and looking into his eyes spoke, "Shirou. I want to hear you say it."

While he wanted to do nothing but shout for her to stay, to go on another date someday, to eat together once more, to run to her and hold her, but in his heart, he knew that he couldn't. To do so would be a betrayal of everything he felt, stood for, and most of all, a betrayal of her.

In the end he managed to gather his voice enough to choke out the dreaded words, "Saber. Please fulfill your role."

It was all she needed. All of the darkness, the corruption, the anger. It was blown away in an instant by the power of Excalibur.

As the light from the Holy Grail faded, the light of the new dawn quickly replaced it. As the boy gazed upon the figure standing in the golden dawn, her beauty, or perhaps the sunlight, blinded him.

* * *

 

_Now this is **not** the end._

* * *

 

(Fate/ Hollow Ataraxia)

As the light quickly faded, it was clear that something was wrong. The grail as gone, but Saber was still here. Saber had a bewildered look on her face. While Shirou was equally stunned. His single command seal was still there, but why?

 

“Saber, did you destroy the grail?” he timidly asked.

“Of course, Shirou. I cannot sense it anymore. I don’t know what has happened, but it seems that I am stuck here.” Saber responded, obviously she had no idea of what was occurring either.

They found Illya in the temple court yard. She appeared uninjured; in fact, it seemed that she was in a deep slumber more than anything.

Nothing the two could think of explained what was going on. In the end, they had to go home victorious and confused. Maybe Rin would know what was going on.

When they got home, Rin had bandaged herself and was slowly helping herself to breakfast and a tall cold glass of milk. When the three, (Illya being carried by Shirou with protests from Saber) entered the living area, Rin’s face contorted in rage as she got up from her seat. However, her wounds were still fresh, and the rage quickly contorted into pain before shifting back to rage. She settled for the verbal thrashing while seated.

Despite her rage, she knew that her calm voice would be much more terrifying, she _sweetly_ asked, “Shirou what exactly did you do, and why is Saber still here?”

Shirou sensed that he had to tread carefully, for he knew his life was in danger. “I d-don’t know what you’re talking about, Saber and I destroyed the grail, but she’s still here, we didn’t do anything else.” He nervously thumbed over to Saber who nodded to confirm his story.

Rin’s eye twitched. “Nothing else? Then how do you explain this!”, she finally dropped the act and shouted at him, rolling up her sleeve and shoving it towards him.

Shirou, couldn’t believe what he was looking at, “Is that…” he began.

Rin cut him off shouting, “Yes it’s Archer’s command seal! And the fact that it exists proves that he’s alive. He’s cut off contact with me, but he’s alive.”

“Rin when I struck the grail, I felt a wave of energy flow through me and then nothing. It was like the grail was gone. I was completely unsure of what it meant, but that could have caused this.” Saber explained.

Rin nodded, “Hmm, perhaps, but as overseer of this city it is my duty to find out what is happening to it. If there is a chance that the grail could still be out there it is our job to destroy it.”

Once Rin had recovered enough, they set out to find answers. What they found shocked them. They found servants considered long dead.

Lancer, Caster, Rider, Berserker, Assassin the servants that they had once slew were now back. However, the killing intent in all of them was gone. A natural competitiveness was there, sure, but they all sensed that the grail was absent and saw no reason to fight. However, they did not find Archer (both EMIYA or Gilgamesh), the former in hiding and the latter dead. In fact everyone except Kotomine and Gilgamesh seemed to be accounted for and alive. 

They searched all day, yet no answers surfaced and with no reason to fight they went home and decided to try again tomorrow.

However, tomorrow came and went, and so did the next. Soon it had been months and no signs of the grail war had resurfaced. Before they had realized it the servants and masters all fluidly settled into a semi-normal life. Dawns filled with good company shifted into evenings with good food and soon it was summer.

And all was good.

* * *

 

One week though came and went without any of the people living though it taking too much of a note, but it was the start of something new.

It had started in the Fuyuki Mall, Rin was doing some shopping and Shirou had come with her. They had exited a specialty foods store and were on the way to a jewelry store before they headed home. The two were talking about Rin’s trip to London. She was going to try to get into the London Clocktower, the finest gathering of Magi in the world.

“I’m going to need a trump card when I go to London next year. They say there are a lot of weirdos this term, and since I will be going as a bumpkin from the far east, it’d be a good idea to have some dignity.” She gave Shirou a smile and another bag full of shopping goods to carry.

What she actually intended to do was beyond Shirou’s imagination, but she and Illya had spent countless hours and dollars meticulously planning the project.

However, when it came time to produce results, she had messed up completely and utterly, on a scale that mere mortals could never imagine.

The result: the temporary financial ruin of Rin Tohsaka and destruction of a good portion of Einzbern Mansion.

And unbeknownst to all, the beginning of a domino effect that would change Fate itself.

* * *

 

20XX (EMIYA’s Route)

The next several years passed quickly for Shirou, he found himself moving forward in life against his will. Before he had realized it he had graduated secondary school and had moved onto university. Soon university had come and gone and he found himself a full-time mechanic for Fuji-nee. Raiga Fujimura and his son had died in an “accident” and Tagia had been forced to take over the yakuza. She had no desire to continue the more extreme elements of operating a yakuza and sought to moderate and turn to more legal means of commerce. However Rin and himself found themselves drawn deeper into the web of Japanese crime. He soon found himself way out his league. Risking his life almost daily to de-escalate every perilous situation his little family had found themselves in. However, he tried to save as many as he possible could on the way. Innocents didn’t deserve to suffer because of this. However, somethings had never changed. Rin, Sakura and Taiga all came over and enjoyed dinner almost every night as if time itself was halted.

What had also halted was his mindset. He had never moved on from the King of Knights. Over the years he forgot some of her mannerisms, the exact sound of her voice, the way her facial features all came together perfectly, but he knew deep down that some part of him longed for Saber. But she was gone, never to return.

Nevertheless, time marched onwards.

* * *

 

20XX+Y (EMIYA’s Route)

Onwards it marched. Over time the burdens of the world were brought down upon Shirou. Soon he found himself making a deal with The World. A pact to save people in exchange for his humanity. Yes, he could accept those terms.

* * *

 

A monstrosity

A beheomoth.

A dealer of suffering of death.

While once he had championed democracy and the rule of law, he had soon discovered that the only constant in his life was the use of human death as a means to an end. As long as a single human existed somewhere along some time line, Alaya was content. This is what he was now. He soon found the mere notion of existence unbearable. Forced to betray what he stood for, millions if not billions fell before him a cross many timelines. All in the name of the ‘greater good of humanity’.

His existence as a human had nearly broken him and this was the tipping point. Over time he simply stopped caring and started accepting his new reality.

His new reality was also an alternate reality a factory of steel and iron that produced swords aplenty. Ceaseless mining, forging and casting all contributed to the wasteland of his Unlimited Blade Works. Yet it was his tool, to use in this insidious quest.

October 2004. (Fate/ Hollow Ataraxia)

Something was wrong, very wrong. EMIYA had spent countless millennium as a Counter-Guardian and he was able to recognize when something was off. It was if time itself was breaking down. It was hard to keep timelines straight anyway, but he was pretty sure he had lived this early October before. Many times, in fact. Yes, he remembered that he had finally killed the fool Shirou Emiya by putting an arrow through his skull and heart (that had been satisfying as hell), and he also remembered being sliced in two by Excalibur (Not as pleasant)  just a few days/ weeks / timeline loops (?) later.

Whatever was wrong he would have to find out and eliminate the cause of it, but for now he would have to wait and see.

* * *

 

0 ∪ ∞ Holocene Era (Unknown Location)

EMIYA wasn’t _too_ surprised as he came to he found himself face to face with a small girl. Looking around at the cosmic realm, he tersely he greeted her, "Hello Alaya, it's been a while since we've talked in person. Exactly why have I been brought here?"

The girl greeted her Counter Guardian cheerfully, "Hi Shirou!" Then growing seemingly nervous she sheepishly said, “I may have made most of the timelines I had in storage incase humanity was about to go extinct uhhh… completely useless." Before EMIYA could interrupt, she cut in. "But I can fix it! I have a solution! I just need your help with something…"

Astounded, an eyebrow shot up and he asked, "Useless? And what exactly do you mean by ‘incase humanity goes extinct’? Isn't that your one and only job? What happened?"

Alaya rubbed the back of her head, "You're not going to like it. Something has caused a majority of the timelines I currently hold to converge to extinction. I’m pretty sure I know what it was, but blaming Rin isn’t going to fix my problems now. I’m not 100% certain yet, but it seems in her ritual she blew a hole in time and space and created a Causality Conductor. Basically, every timeline with a Fuyuki Grail War started to become corrupt. I didn’t realize what was happening before it was too late, and unfortunately, those are the vast majority I keep now because it is where you exist..”

EMIYA let out a slow “Okay” as he rubbed the back of his head in slight confusion, “Where do I come in then?”

Like a small child promised candy, Alaya came up to him enthusiastically. Despite being physically shorter than him he still felt like a piece of meat or a prey that is being stalked.

She quickly spewed off, “Well, the easiest way to create a untold number of potential futures all revolve around when Shirou Emiya won the 5th Holy Grail War by defeating the priest Kotomine and destroying the grail. If the Grail hasn't been cursed from the 4th Grail War, and he wishes for Saber to stay it  _should_ work. I can feel it whenever I go back and observe the timelines, but every time he always has Saber destroy the Grail."

EMIYA's eyes widened in confusion and he asked, "But that's impossible, there are in infinite number of different outcomes in the univ…"

Cutting him off, Alaya started tearing at her hair. "I know that, but you just had to be one of  _those_  people," she shouted at EMIYA, dropping the separation between the boy and the Counter-Guardian, and pointing a finger at him.

EMIYA had no idea what she was going on about. Bewildered, he asked, "One of those people? What are you talking about?"

Clearly exasperated, she explained, "I just call them constants. They always share the same fate or take the same action across all universes. It is 100% certain to happen every single time. For instance, in all the timelines where Jesus of Nazareth is born, he always ends up being crucified. Similarly, if Rome manages to win the Punic Wars, it is destined for Imperium, the Republic always collapses and it happens with absolute certainty. Similarly, if Shirou Emiya wins the Holy Grail War with Arturia Pendragon, he always orders her to destroy it, cursed or not. Haven’t you noticed that?”

EMIYA nodded he understood almost everything now, but the unknown uneased him. Growing terse he asked Alaya, "Then why have you called me here? I am no longer that boy nor can I help you."

Alaya sighed once more and continued explaining, "Every so often I have to cull timelines that look unpromising, it takes too much energy to maintain them all. However, with the turning of the century and the millennium being a sort of spring cleaning for the number of universes I kept meant the options became limited. With the grail wars between them, every time line I kept after the culling have all somehow bottlenecked into human extinction. Nuclear war, massive climate change, even a meteorite collision all somehow managed to find a way to wipe out everyone. There's even a couple timelines where humanity escapes into space into the 3rd millennium, but Gaia always found a way to win... " Alaya seemed down and pensive, her shame from the failure to keep humanity thriving showing. But she quickly became excited and pointed at EMIYA, "But we can change that If I just have you subsume Shirou and change the timeline, perhaps things will change."

EMIYA looked surprised and slightly confused, "You can do that? I thought you just said the decision was guaranteed."

Alaya just shrugged her shoulders, "Yea I don't know how it works. But it if Shirou is the constant, you just have to replace him. Whether you like it or not, you are similar enough to him to make this work."

As she went off into technicalities about the plan, all of which went over EMIYA's head,  _I thought she just said she didn't know how it worked,_ he thought wryly.

Suddenly she pointed at him, "Hey! I heard that! And your right, but what I do know is that you only have one shot at this. I know you and him are similar, yet fundamental opposites of each other, and it makes it taxing on my energy. The energy and effort I will have to put into this makes it a once an eon effort. At least."

EMIYA responded, suddenly wary of his heavy involvement, "I don't know about this. What if something unexpected happens? I don't fee.."

Once again, he was cut off, "Listen, you don't get a choice in the matter. You are my Counter Guardian, and you're going to help me. We wouldn’t even be here if you had just allowed Shirou to live in the castle then, but no you had to kill him. Wish for humanity to survive and we'll both be done with this."

EMIYA grimaced at this and though,  _We're doomed, the consciousness of mankind acts like a spoiled girl. Fitting, considering she's a child compared to Gaia._

Yet another finger was pointed at him, I heard that too! Now begone!" Snapping her fingers EMIYA felt light headed and found himself fading away for the second time today.

Before he disappeared, he thought of one last concern, "What exactly is the plan when I get there?"

Smiling and waving she laughed as he faded for the second time today, "I have literally no idea. I've never been able to mess with a constant before. I'll figure something out. Just don’t forget to wish for humanity."

* * *

 

0 ∪ ∞ HE (Unknown Location)

EMIYA found himself transported to the end of the 5th Grail war battered, bruised, yet alive and victorious. Instantly the fatigue rushed over him, he staggered forward, almost falling over. He reasoned that must have subsumed the body of Shirou, he had forgotten over the long years what such a weak body felt like. Suddenly a voice snapped him out of his reverie.

"I will destroy the Holy Grail, that is my role." Saber's voice rang out across the temple grounds, despite the slight regret, she knew what must be done. It was her duty, if not for herself, at least for her Master.

EMIYA stood in shock for a moment, obvious he had absorbed the idiot’s brain as well as he could feel the emotions threating to overwhelm him. While he remembered Saber fondly as a Counter-Guardian, her memory had never affected his judgment. However, now he heard her voice in a new way, saw her in a new light. The constant nature of the situation demanded that he destroy the grail, he could even feel the grail whispering in his ear to wish, but this time he would forge a new path. A new history.

"Master, please give me the order. I cannot destroy it without your order. Use your last command spell" Her voice rang out again, she must have misjudged his delay as uncertainty.

She turned to the boy, her voice softening and looking into his eyes spoke, "Shirou. I want to hear you say it."

 _Shit._  He had almost forgotten how much that look had gotten him when he was a mortal, but now it only made the following task so much harder. How was he supposed to bluff his way out of this situation now?

_Saber. Please fulfill your role._

He had seen this in his dreams and visions an infinite number of times, it what he always said, but now it was different. Calling out, he changed fate forever, "No Saber, don't."

 _  
_ The grail thought that the boy had decided to wish upon it. _Save her. Save everyone. Save her._ It chanted an infernal mantra.

Instantly, Saber spun around and looked at him as if he was insane. Her eyes narrowing, she demanded in no uncertain terms, "Shirou! Order me to destroy the grail. It is what must be done!”

Giving her a smile. He attempted to lie through his teeth to the bewildered Saber. "Kotomine and Gilgamesh's tainted and insane ways corrupted nature tainted the grail. If you had slain me in the church earlier, and then used it, it would have only brought misery and destruction. But now, you can wish for what you want." Mind reeling, he attempted to convince her. Acting slightly down he added, "If you wish you can redo the selection of king of Britain."

It didn't make any sense, but it didn't have to either. All that he needed was for Saber to believe it. She was the king of Britain, and almost saintly in her values, but she was human and that is what he banked upon now.

Eventually the repressed hopes and dreams of the last millennium and a half came through and she smiled. "Thank you master, it was an honor to serve by your side." Turning to the grail, the King of Knights declared, "I Arturia Pendragon have completed the quest for the grail. I humbly ask for the Matter of Britain to be redecided in favor of a truly worthy king."

She began to glow and disappeared as suddenly as she had been summoned to him, the grail all too happy to send her back in time and relish in the death and bloodshed of a broken Britain once again. The grail would relish in the chaos and the bloodshed of Late Antiquity once again.

Inside he felt terrible, doing this was equivalent to desecrating all she stood for. To go back was to bring her eternal suffering. This was the price of his pact with the world. Now he would be forced to destroy everything he held dear for the sake of human survival. Millions of people were nothing but a drop in the bucket if it meant that humanity survived. But now he had to destroy his origin. Fuyuki City. Surely any wish here would destroy the region if not all of Kyushu. But he knew that his former friends and family lived below him.

EMIYA bitterly thought that if Saber had the opportunity she would still have sacrificed herself for the good of humanity. It was her duty as king, an oath she took to protect her people. Yet it made him mad, mad that it took such extreme measures for her to realize to live for self. It was something effectively unobtainable, for as it ultimately led to her destruction. They had too much in common. But he was much more bitter and broken than her. She was still strong and brave, full of spirit. He hoped that where ever she was she could one day be happy. It was too late for him.

A he watched the morning dawn, he found himself thinking,  _I hope that someday she can live for herself and be happy._

Instantly he heard an echo in head. He immediately came from the grail,  _Then Champion, your wish shall be granted._ Before he could react. Black tentacles immediately shot from it and enveloped him. It too had plans for chaotic future for this young fool.

Instantly he heard Alaya's voice thundering through his head, rattling his skull, "You idiot! You had one job! That counted as your wish! That's not what you were supposed to wish for! I had to cull a ton of the timelines to insert you here! It was so  _easy_ , you just had to wish for the continued survival of man and the stupid grail would have taken care of it. You had one shot and you blew it!"

Now that it was too late to do anything, he could only smiling and chuckle to himself. "You trust an old, jaded, and cynical man who has openly mocked of being a Hero of Justice to save the universe? Perhaps I can finally fade away. Anyways, you said we were doomed anyways before, right? Anything I manage to change for the better is surely and improvement. Also, I don't ever remember agreeing to help."

As he and the King of Knights faded away in the morning rays, a voice could be heard, carried away on the breeze, "IDIOT!"

* * *

 

_Now this is **not** the end. _

_It is not even the beginning of the end._

* * *

 

486 CE Dunmonia/Cornwall (Slightly southwest of the future site of Camelot)

As Shirou came to he wasn't sure where he was. All he knew was that he was in the middle of nowhere, in the most uncomfortable clothes, and that he had no idea what had happened. One second he had won the Grail War and had made a wish for Saber, now his head and arm were seating with pain. Not his hand either, his command spell was gone, but his entire arm  _burned._  Unsure of what to do, he picked a random direction and started walking, maybe he could find someone to ask for help from.

A knight scouted the forests of Dumnonia, he was hunting for dinner for him and his friendsw for the night. It was still mid-day and the sun filtered down through the broad leaves of the ancient forests. Hopefully he would be able to catch a couple hares, or if he was lucky, he would find a deer. His thoughts were interrupted when he spotted Shirou in a clearing. Upon seeing the boy, his horse began to whine. Something was obviously wrong with this figure in the clearing.

Who was this strange boy? Instant he thought of a Saxon or Jute, after all. They were at war. However, closer inspection indicated a Pict, or perhaps a native of Éire, for his hair was redder than anything he had ever seen from a native Briton. However, there was something that had unnerved him, there was something wrong with his eyes, they were in a state of being half-way closed constantly. Maybe it was his imagination, but it made him seem suspicious. The man was traveling alone and wandering about as if lost. It was obvious that he was lost, as he was deep in his father's hunting territory. He didn't appear armed and seemed to be a peasant for he saw no sign or armor or any coinage or goods to sell. Nonetheless, this peasant was on his personal hunting ground, a crime against his father. He had been granted this land by the king and now some peasant was here? Not wanting to startle the peasant he hailed loudly, then rode up and asked, "Who are you?"

The look on the boy's face indicated that he either didn't hear him or was purposefully ignoring him. He frowned and drew his sword, he pointed it at the boy and repeated.

" _Who are you_?"

* * *

 

"Piw os ta?"

The first time the strange man had said the words, Shirou had come up to him to ask for directions. Upon closer inspection, he had to have been some sort of LARPer. After all, who goes running around Japan in armor and on a horse? He must have been transported to Hokkaido or something as he still saw no sign of civilization other than this man. It was all forests and wilderness in Hokkaido, right?

However, upon hearing the garbled mess of a greeting Shirou cursed his luck. It figured that the first man he met was intoxicated or something. But with the appearance of a sword, it was clear that the man was deadly serious. He assumed he must have been in a foreign country. After all, there was no way to possibly understand that throat gargling. Still unsure, he held his hands up and greeted the man. It was the only thing he could really do, with the sword in his face and all.

"Hello, my name is Shirou Emiya. Can I help you?"

* * *

 

こんにちは、私の名前は衛宮 士郎. どんな御用でしょうか？

As the boy spoke the foreign words, the knight was instantly alert and on guard. A foreigner? He himself was a fresh new knight, being knighted early due to the need for more knights to resist the invaders, but he had seen when the army had brought prisoners from Eire and Alba and Gaul, and this boy's words were absolutely not either of those languages. If it were, he would have been able to make at least something out, but this was a completely mystical and foreign language. Remembering his training from nearly a decade ago, only one thing came to mind.

Magic. It was something to be on constant guard for, and something to be feared. His father had stressed that this one thing that all the knights of his lands be wary of. He was unsure of what to do, sure he had fought bandits before, but this was something way out of his league. He was a little scared but mostly excited, the adrenaline rushing through his body. He would have to take this mage to father. The only question was how to capture him.

As soon as the man leveled his sword, Shirou moved into action. “Trace on” his Japanese mantra only alerting the knight more. However, he found that nothing happened. Looking inwards he found the sludge of the grail clogging his magical circuits. They sputtered like a car engine without gasoline and soon he found himself dodging the sword based off of pure reflex. It had been mere hours for Shirou since he had done this, but EMIYA’s memory of combat was still fresh.

The two fighters soon found themselves at an impasse. The attacking knight able to swing his sword, but unable to connect, and the defender incapable of counter-offense.

Shirou thought about running, but his opponent had a horse and would quickly catch up to him, unable to defeat his opponent or flee, he chose to surrender. They could stand there all day and do this, and if the knight grew tired he would merely ride off and return with help. Plus, maybe he could figure out what was going on.  The man he had been wary at first, but Shirou had managed to signal with him that he didn’t want to fight. A set of ropes binding his hands was the concession that he paid.

As he trailed the horse he wondered what he had just gotten himself into.

* * *

 

_Now this is **not** the end. _

_It is not even the beginning of the end._

_…_

_But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning._

* * *

 

0 ∪ ∞ HE (Unknown Location)

Watching from beyond the pale, Alaya sighed, "Damn it, I knew I forgot something."

Gaia stood appeared next to her, observing mirage that stood before the two only sighed in exasperation, "I always told you that humans always find something to screw up. 'The Common Sense of Man' still leaves room for stupidity after all. No wonder I always find a way to win."

Alaya instantly began to pout with her cheeks puffing out as she took a swing at Gaia "Shut up! I am not a human!"

Gaia only laughed as he taunted Alaya, "Eh, close enough, you both seem to make the same mistakes."

"Shut Up!" the sound of the subsequent slap could be heard through the astral plane.

* * *

 

The monk put down his pen. A wondrous invention from the court of the king. He wondered why the king mandated that this fictional piece be placed at the very beginning of the legend. Even if it were declared fact, one cannot ignore the fact that it is impossible for this to happen. 2004 CE was over 1000 years from now. If the king declared that 2+2 =5 it would not make it so.  
When he asked about it, the king just told him to write it down, but he had a strange longing in his eyes that the monk could not place.

It was not his place to question it, if the king wished for this to be here it shall be done.

And then he began the next piece.

Thanks for reading, Don't forget to drop a review! Feel welcome to follow or favorite.

Created 3/16/18

Edited 3/20/19

Fate/Stay Night is a brand written by Kinoko Nasu. This is a non-commercial work, and  I do not claim any ownership over the characters or the world of Fate/ Stay Night.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for coming to the second chapter! I hope you enjoyed the first. I'm still not sure where the story is going to head for sure, so any suggestions are welcome. (as in ideas/themes to use, not I want X-shipping/ harem, or anything or how about how this is version 2.0 and how the first chapters are too same-y/different etc. it’ll be annoying and deep inside you know it. [If you  _must_ , at least provide something constructive with request/complaint])

Most of those who believe they should stop,  
find it very difficult to do so.  
They find it's become a deeply ingrained habit,  
a habit they can't change, just because they want to.

* * *

 

486 CE Dunmonia/Cornwall

Onwards he trod. Bound by his hands to the saddle of the horse. He was still confused and unsure of what was happening. All he knew was that he was a prisoner. Luckily the knight was kind enough to ride slow enough so that he could keep up. He wouldn’t be dragged across the mud today. The knight who he had surrendered to was cautious, but not aggressive or malicious. Surprisingly, he checked Shirou for wounds, and tended to a cut that he had somehow gotten from the fight. He hadn’t noticed it until the knight had found it; and while it stung, he was glad the wound was at least bound.

Now Shirou had a chance to get a closer at the knight, he seemed awfully young. His face yet to fully develop and chisel out. No stubble grew around his neck, and the rest of his face remained clean. He was quite short, not at short as Saber, but still shorter than he. If Shirou had to guess he would be a about 160cm (5’3”) . He had pale blonde hair, and green eyes. But while the color pallet was similar, he looked different to Saber. While Saber was obviously feminine, this knight looked a bit more androgynous, but not by much; he reasoned it was probably due to the fact that he was so young.

The knight had tried to converse with him but it was apparent that they weren’t going to be conversing anytime soon. It wasn’t Shirou’s fault either. Over the many years of working for/against the yakuza he had picked up a considerable amount of English and was somewhat fluent. However, he understood not a single word. It was obvious that it was not English that the knight spoke Interestingly, he had picked up on two terms that struck him.

The first was _Bedivere._ The name of the famous Knight of the Round table. The knight who always had stood by the king and was the last to do so, returning Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake. Shirou clumsily managed to confirm that this was indeed Bedivere. He pointed at him-self and said his name, and indeed the knight pointed at himself and repeated the name. Despite being in the presence of a star of history, the first thought that went through his head was if he knew where Saber was.

But not Saber, Arturia, No Arthur, he mentally chastised himself. Saber was a name that held value to only himself, and maybe another magus if he ever came across one. Arturia was the name she had gone by in secret to hide both her true identity as a servant as well as to hide her gender in her life. Arturia to him was the type of friend that you could go an entire life time without finding, even if she was an endless glutton, a lifelong companion even if in spirit, a servant to fight in the Holy Grail War, that was Saber. Arthur Pendragon was the name of the ruling king. Son of Uther, champion and defender Britain, man to draw Caliburn from the stone, and wielder of the holy sword Excalibur. That was the difference between the two, and they were like opposite sides of the same coin. Where Saber had (eventually) accepting and open to the world, to him, King Arthur would not have allowed a ray of humanity to shine through lest it lead him astray from his duty. He vowed to himself that if he ever found Saber that he would not let her carry that burden alone.

“Bedivere” he got the knight’s attention.

Surprised, the knight turned around in the saddle. He had just recently stopped for food and couldn’t think of any reason to try again. Clearly they couldn’t communicate, so why bother getting his attention? He gave the foreigner a look that signaled him to continue with whatever he wanted.

Shirou made a motion to try to communicate he was searching, well at least as well as he could with his hands tied, “Arthur?” he asked, hoping that the name would be recognized.

            Obviously that had been a poor thing to ask about. Instantly, Bedivere’s hand went to his sword, and he would have drawn it if Shirou had not been tied up. Shirou seeing that Bedivere was about to draw a sword backed up a bit, trying to clear some distance. But Bedivere only gave Shirou a long hard look, and then turned without a word and contained riding onwards.

            Despite the silence, Bedivere’s mind was racing. What does that man want with Arthur? No one should even know he existed outside of the few village dwellers in the region. Had Morgan LeFay found them? Bedivere didn’t know. Despite the fact that this man was tied up and has showed no further inclination of hostilities, he found himself slightly afraid. This man seemed to be surrounded a magic presence, and if Arthur was found, he would be in great danger. Despite being a knight, he was practically a squire, only being knighted weeks before, and had yet to kill a man in battle. Yet, he was tempted to slaughter his prisoner before anything could happen. After all, he was currently leading him to Arthur’s location.

A cold sweat broke out across Bedivere’s skin. Forget the fact it was Arthur, if he allowed any of his friends to be hurt, he could never forgive himself. It was something that he could not allow to happen.

 He jumped off his horse, and drawing his sword, he quickly turned, raised him arm and slashed at Shirou in an instant. Due to the fact that he shared some of EMIYA’s spirt and had just come out of the fight of his life, the Holy Grail War, Shirou was able to detect the swing before it even started to pick up speed. Backing up, he let as much rope slack before he was caught under the blade. The blade came down onto the rope severing it.

The two eyed each other, both momentarily frozen wondering what the other would do next. Recovering first Shirou quickly gathered the rope still attached to him and fled into the forest. Things had gone from bad to worse, and he wasn’t going to stick round and see what happened. Bedivere quickly recovered and took off after him.

It wasn’t long before Shirou was able to put some ground between him and the heavily armored knight. He wondered what he should do. Should he surrender? No, he had done that once before and asking about Arturia had clearly landed him in trouble. However, the way the knight had reacted indicated that he definitely knew where she was. Clearly the only two options were to escape or fight. If he escaped, surely Bedivere would come back with a search party, and while he had no clue where he was, Bedivere did and was probably intimately familiar with the surrounding area. It would only be a matter of time before he was found. So he was left with fighting.

“Trace On” he whispered, hoping that Bedivere wasn’t anywhere nearby for the time being. However, he quickly was greeted by the mental image of the Grail’s sludge blocking his magical circuits; so magic was out. With little alternatives, he quickly devised a rudimentary plan. While before he had no way to close the distance between him and Bedivere without getting cut up, now he had a rope at his disposal, and that was all he needed. Despite being unable to use his hands properly, he was still able to use the rope as a weapon against Bedivere. Shirou was easily able to stealthily circle around the young knight and managed to trip and snare his opponent with the rope. He winced as Bedivere’s head slammed against a tree, unconscious.

‘Well that went easier than expected’ Shirou thought. However, now he had an unconscious knight to deal with. First though was to free his hands. Using the sword to cut the rope he freed his hands and took the scabbard. Aside from a dagger strapped to the inside of his leg, Bedivere seemed to have no other weapons on him. He slowly dragged the man back to his horse ( _armor was heavy!)_ , and manage to tie him down in a way so he wouldn’t fall off. Now he had to decide what to do next. Once again escape would not be an option, a search party would be out in days. Killing Bedivere was something that hadn’t even crossed his mind, but he also couldn’t bring himself to take the horse and leave he knight stranded, and so he found himself riding onwards in the same direction as he had before with Bedivere precariously in tow.

However, he soon found it difficult to ride smoothly. Now Shirou was no stranger to farm animals or even horses. Fuyuki City had one of the fastest urban to rural transitions he had ever heard of, one could probably walk two and ½ hours, maybe three, from any spot in the city and stumble upon a farm of some type, and that was from any point, including the downtown with its skyscrapers and heavy traffic. One mornings when the winds blew just right, you could smell the must of the farm on the wind from his front door, and he had helped out pretty much every one of his neighbors with something at one point or another in the past.

No, the problem that there were no stirrups on this horse, and he couldn’t keep his balance, so he was left with loosely sitting on top of the horse and trying to grip the saddle with his hands and the flanks of the horse with his legs in a desperate attempt to keep his balance. Unfortunately this only aggravated the horse and made things worse It also wasn’t helping that he had to try to not push Bedivere off the horse in his attempt to stabilize himself. It wasn’t long until his thighs were sore.

 

Nevertheless, on horseback it was not far before he started to see farmlands on the horizon. Soon however, a group came across him. It was possible, but he was caught totally off guard. He had been rounding the crest of the hill when they came out of nowhere from the other side. Two men were walking and talking about this or that, but behind them was someone truly unexpected. It was someone who the Shirou of the past had given up on seeing ever again, and someone who EMIYA would never meet in the same light again. Saber.

It was unexpected that he would find Arturia so soon, but there she stood. Emotions that he was unaware of rushed to the surface. Even though Shirou had spent the summer with his servant in a life of idle content, the parts of other Shirou’s and EMIYA’s from other multiverses had gone decades or even centuries without being able to see their servant. The Shirou’s of the past had given up on seeing ever again, but would always hold a special place in the heart, and someone that EMIYA would never meet in the same light again.

She was not the graceful king that Shirou had expected, nor even a tough knight, but a teenage child. She was the same height as the Saber he had seen hours before, but she lacked any of the muscle build that a sword wielder would have, she also lacked any sort of weapons or armor. She was in men’s clothing and it was clear that her appearance was not something to be broadcast. But despite the non-obvious initial sighting, what had given it away to Shirou was her eyes. Green and bright, they widened as he made eye contact with here, but within there was no trace of hardship or loss, of pain or suffering. They were bright, playful and curious. Innocent. A soft “Saber” was all he could let out as he stared at her, and just for a second, everything was right.

For a second Shirou was lost in her eyes, but the two men with her were immediately alert. The older of the two did not move, but merely eyed Shirou with a look of curiosity in his eyes. Upon seeing Bedivere on the back of the horse, the younger man’s hand went to his sword immediately. He gruffly shouted, “Get back Wart!” But in the end, he didn’t even give him an option as he roughly forced him backwards and he drew his sword.

In the commotion, the horse reared backwards, and he lost his balance and fell. As he got up to try to turn and run or fight, Bedivere suddenly rose up from behind him. “Not today!” he roared and drove his elbow into the back of Shirou’s neck. Bedivere was so close and quick to strike, he barely even reacted before he felt the metal dig deep into his neck. As he collapsed of the horse he felt faint, not due to the blow, okay maybe a little, but because he had finally felt an invisible burden lifted off his shoulders. As the world faded to black a thought crossed his mind. He knew that he could rest easy, for no matter what would happen from here on out, he had a goal, a purpose, a wish that had been fulfilled.

He had found Saber.

* * *

 

As Shirou came to, he found himself at the crossroads for those destined for greatness, a prison cell. Damp, dirty, and dark, it was the stereotypical prison; with a heavy wooden door and no windows, the only source of light was the small window bar which only gave him a view of the direct area outside cell; it was definitely larger than the average solitary confinement cell in modern prisons. He was lucky he wasn't in an oubliette or just some hole in the ground with a trapdoor over it, or dead considering what had happened today.

Groggy and confused, he stood up; well at least he tried. He quickly discovered that there were ropes that bound his legs together; but luckily, his hands were unbound. Wiping away the grime from his face, he tried to figure out what had happened. He had won the Holy Grail War, became lost in the forest, got captured, and then turned the tables and captured a knight of the round table, only be knocked out after becoming star struck by Saber’s mere sight, and now he was in a prison. He knew that Saber was here, and that Bedivere was too, so if he had to guess, he would say he was in Dark Ages Britain. Other than that, he knew almost nothing. Additionally, he could do nothing to escape from the prison. Once again, he tried to summon a weapon or use reinforcement magic to break the door, but whenever he tried, his arm and head started searing with pain. Not even Avalon would respond to his trace attempts. With nothing else to do he eventually found himself in a restless sleep.

The clamoring of a keychain woke him from his slumber. How long had it been? In the confines of the cell, he was unsure of what time of day it was, heck he was unsure of where he was or even what year it was. A gruff man came into the cell. He couldn't recognize a single word he said; it was clear that he was not happy to be there, but instead, he was bringing something for him to eat.

'Something to eat' turned out to be a grey morass of matter (he wasn't sure he could call it food) and a piece of moldy bread. Saying that it was slop was an insult to the pigs of the world; it was rancid, smelling worse than the one time he was late coming home and Fuji-Nee attempted to cook something. Having a taste, he discovered that it was indeed worse than Fuji-Nee's abomination. In fact, it was  _much_  worse than he could have possibly prepared for. Vomit, dirt, snot, bugs, these were all things he would have rather eaten. There was no way he was eating that. He would sooner die, and so he choked down the moldy bread and so, exhausted, cold, and defeated, he turned over and tried to sleep.

It had been several days since Shirou had been thrown into the dungeons. He wasn't sure how long it had exactly been. It was definitely long enough to note that there were exactly five planks on his door, eight steps that he could see from the slot in his door, and that he could count to 19,275 in 12 hours if he spoke at four syllables a second. The guard that came to give him food and drink wasn't exactly in the mood for conversation with a suspected mage who had captured a knight and had been looking for the son of the lord. It also didn't help that his language was viewed as incantations for a spell. He supposed he should have known it was a fruitless endeavor, but he had tried to ask the first guard a few questions. He had fled in terror (and getting the horrible smelling 'food' everywhere in the process), and from then on out, and armed guard came to deliver food and water. He had been restrained, abused, gagged, beaten and starved until it was made clear to him that 'practicing magic' (speaking Japanese) was forbidden. How was he to escape? What had he done to deserve this?

From another dimension he swore he could have heard a small girl whispering, "It's your purgatory for screwing up everything." Perhaps it was a sign that he had started to go insane as well.

* * *

 

Smoke

Fire  
Misery

Destruction

Death

In the middle of the night, Arturia awoke from a dream, no a nightmare. For the past few days her dreams had been filled with a great tragedy in a faraway place. A small burnt and destroyed child. Snippets of the horror came through to her, but it was more than enough to cause a whimper. What was the cause of this devastation? She pondered the cause. It had started back when she had encountered that boy with Sir Bedivere, or at least that was the last exciting thing to happen to her. Ever since then, Merlin had been different. Normally he was near impossible to decipher, but she could just barely able to place her finger on it this time. It was as if he was waiting for something to happen. She was sure of it.

* * *

 

Several days later, (Weeks? A month? He wasn't sure, the spouts of consciousness were too few and far between, and the time he did spend aware was either in listless boredom or in pain.) the sound of light clinks of armor and someone scampering down the stairs altered Shirou to another presence. Normally the heavy clunking of the guard as he lumbered down the stairs to bring him more edible filth was the only thing that he heard at all.

Curious about this newcomer, he pressed his face to the narrow slit in the door. As Shirou saw the figure emerge from the stair well, his eyes went wide with shock. His ragged throat gasped, well it would have if it wasn't so ragged and hoarse. It was something he had never expected to see, not in a thousand years.

She was just as beautiful as the last time he had seen her, and down in the dungeons, alone and not being assaulted, he was able to process the fact that she was actually there without being overwhelmed. She and her clothes were slightly dirty and unkempt. Like all those in the era since the Roman baths had fallen into disrepair, the filth that everyone was covered in was inevitable without a stream or the ocean nearby. In Japan a host would be appalled at such filth, and the offender would probably result in being asked to leave immediately, but any peasant in Britain would marvel of how clean they were.

But it was her eyes that drew him in. Bright and green, they stood out like a blazing sun in the dark dungeon; her eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected contact, piercing into him. The glow of the torch light outlining her face like an angel. Upon seeing her again, a sharp pain entered his mind and it proved too much for his weakened body as he quickly fainted, collapsing into a heap on the cold stone floor. A weak gasp escaped his throat as he faded into oblivion for the nth time that month, "Saber…".

* * *

 

A small teen scampered down the stairs, she had to see the new prisoner. It had taken a while, but she had been able to escape her training and see this curiosity. As far back as she could remember, her father and brother had always protected her from harm. It was their sworn duty to their late king, Uther Pendragon; of course, this oath must remain private, for public exposure would only lead to further danger. She wasn't complaining about the protection. Lord only knows over the years the number of people who had managed to find her.

But she was now a squire and yet she found herself being treated as a page or a mere child, someone always who needed help. But for every threat that reared its ugly head, it seemed that there was a dozen or two (or even more than that) who were probably not a real threat, and her father tended to be quite overprotective. Whispers had been thrown about the court of a rouge mage in the prison, the first of the type. Even Bedivere said that gossip would do no good. What that meant to Arturia was that the knight didn’t know anything either.

It had usually been some loon who was interested in 'the feminine looks of the squire named Arthur,' or the (extremely) rare legitimate threat. But the excuse of a mage? She couldn't believe it; Merlin was the only mage she knew of, and he always came from his journeys to deal with anything magical. Well that might have been lie, she had seen him briefly before being whisked away again by Kay, but for the brief moment she had looked at him, she felt drawn to him, curious. The word he had said had stuck to her brain like magic, Saber, what did that mean? She had to find out, or the curiosity would drive her insane, she knew that this boy wasn't the usual stock prisoner.

She snuck into the prison guard shack; the guard posted for this week was fast asleep. (It was barely past midday! Nevertheless, the was glad that they always placed this guard on prison duty, it made getting in and out so much easier.) Tiptoeing down the stairs, she crept closer to the first door. Peering inside she found… nothing. Well, there were about a dozen to check. Turning around, she saw a face peering out at her. They locked eyes, and hers widened in surprise. She had been trying to be quiet, yet here this individual had seen her first. It was a good thing he was locked behind the door, or else she really might have been in trouble if the prisoner was really out to get her. The second thing she saw was the hair of the prisoner. While in the daylight his hair had been burning like an open flame, in the darkness of the dungeon, it was smoldering ember which threatened to erupt back into fire if given the slightest bit of air.

However, she was quickly pulled out of her daze as the boy muttered something. There it was again! That word, Saber! What could it possibly mean? She wasn't entirely sure what it was, but she was certain that it didn't sound remotely like Brythonic. It was at that moment she remembered rumor that the prisoner was a mage. She also remembered that Bedivere had told her that the tongue this boy spoke wasn’t anything recognizable.

A clunk from behind the door snapped her out of her thinking. She drew back, unsure of what was going to happen next.

…

Had he fainted? The boy had disappeared from the slot in the door and she had heard a  dull thud from the other side of the door, but she had no way of knowing what was going on.

She cautiously slowly crept forward and brandished the dagger that she had brought with her, her hand was quivering slightly as she was still uncertain if this was a ruse to get her to let her guard down or what. But after a few terse minutes, she concluded that the boy had actually fainted. Her first thought was one of indignation, 'Really? After Sir Bedivere had said this mage had been the reason for being tied up on the horse, and her brother had talked up this 'dangerous mage' to all of his friends in the garrison. But in the end, it just turned out to be just a boy who faints at the mere sight of his victim? Unbelievable.'

Although one thought still found its way to front of her mind, 'Just who is this person?' He might have been a mage, but the notion was fast fading from her mind, but refused to be totally dislodged. Still curious about the prisoner, she crept even  towards the prison cell. A lack or response from the boy meant she was in due for a nasty ambush, or he really had fainted. Curious she entered the prison cell. Locked. Obviously, it was the reason she had stolen the keys from the sleeping guard. Now which key was it? This one? No, perhaps the next one would be it…

* * *

 

While Arturia was attempting to find the correct key, Shirou slept in a restless slumber. The last thing he remembered was Saber coming down the stairs, being overwhelmed, and then the light from the torch had grown in intensity until he had passed out. Now he found himself standing in space, looking over the Earth; nearby him, a small girl and a man stood, but it was hard to discern any of their features.

The girl spoke, startling him, "Do you know why you're here?" It was less of a question and more of a demand. It didn't do anything to help his confusion; if anything, it made it worse.

He was careful of how he responded, he didn't know who this was, but she sounded irritated. "No, I'm not entirely sure of how I got here either, but I…" he cut himself off as the girl started to talk to herself incessantly.

"Great, just great." She started. "You don't even remember a single thing. How could you be so useless?"

Shirou backed away, he wasn't sure what was going on, and he didn't want anything to do with it. The complaints of the girl were growing more aggressive and pointed.

Just as he thought she was going to completely lose it, the man placed his hand on her shoulder. "Now, now. It's not entirely Shirou's fault."

This only confused Shirou further, what was his fault? The fact that he was dreaming that he was in space? Or was it the fact that that he half-dying, stuck in a prison cell?

Calming down a bit, Alaya slowly, yet still angrily, told him, “Let me explain this to you like you’re three. You. Screwed. Up. You were supposed to wish on the stupid grail and make everything right!”

            Shirou got a strong Fuji-Nee vibe from this girl. He felt that if he angered her too much that his life would be jeopardized.

            After some time (He was unsure of exactly how long, not that time in this universe made any sense at all.) he decided that the clueless and beg for mercy if necessary card was his best play. He carefully the girl, "I don’t exactly understand  _how_ I am here, or  _why_ am I here, but I would like to help you if would tell me what’s happening."

Her face contorted, still angry, "You're supposed to save the world!"

One could practically see Shirou sweat drop, “What do you mean?” he asked slowly.  
            Alaya went into a rage, “Do you not remember anything EMIYA?”

By reflex, Shirou corrected her, “Please, call me Shirou.” He then realized that he didn’t know this girl, or the man’s name while they seemed to know his, so he asked the two, “You seem to know my name, but I can’t seem to place yours. Have I met you before?”

The man threw his head back and laughed, while Alaya’s jaw dropped to the floor. Trembling she pointed a finger at him and stuttered, “Y-y-y-you have to be kidding!” she finished in a low wail as she began to mope about like a child.

The man recovered first, still chucking he introduced himself, “My name is Gaia, and this here, is Alaya, the grand protector of all humanity.” He sarcastically motioned to the quivering mess on the ground.

Being polite, he responded, “Nice to meet you Gaia, and you too Alaya…” he glanced to the girl who had started to calm down again. “But that doesn’t answer anything, why am I here? And what is this place?” He motioned to the dimension around him.

Seeing his confusion, the man placed his finger on his forehead, "Perhaps this will answer some questions for you."

It didn't answer any questions, well at least not at first. It brought only an staggering amount of pain. His brain felt like it was going to melt, and his arm felt like it was going to burn itself off. Visions of multiple universes flashed through his head, a deal with this child, pain, betrayal, a chance to save the world. Were they memories? No, the actions were his, but they belonged to another person, separate from Shirou. Yet the pain from this figure could be felt through the link.

After some time (He was unsure of exactly how long, not that time in this universe made any sense at all.) the pain faded, and he opened his eyes and asked the two what was going to happen next.

Alaya perked up a bit and asked, “First thing, are you EMIYA or Shirou?”

The question made little sense to Shirou, but a part of his brain nudged him in the right direction. Was he Shirou Emiya, son of Kiritsugu Emiya and a Champion of Justice or was he EMIYA, Counter Guardian and Archer Class Servant in the 5th Holy Grail War? He searched his soul for a bit, (the benefits of having no time dimension in this world-space) was he determined to save everyone? No, he realized now that was an impossible task. Save as many people as he could? Maybe. As his mind wandered it inevitably ended up on the topic of Saber. Would making her happy be something that he could devote himself to? Well he would certainly try.  
            “I am Shirou” he declared.

Immediately Alaya looked depressed, “Well then, your useless to me, what can you do for me? Nothing!” She was growing agitated again.

Gaia spoke up again trying to calm down the berate girl next to him, "I guess you just have to do your best and see how it all works out."

This did not improve the situation, "Try his best?! See how it works out?" she cried, "I’m  doomed!" and with that she disappeared.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Gaia told Shirou, "Well that could have gone better. Don't mind her, she's just exhausted, a little confused, and  _really_  angry. I was serious, though, we have no idea what is going to happen from here on out.

Shirou asked, "What about you? What will you be doing?"

Gaia only laughed, "My boy, I didn’t even know that this was possible until now. Alaya might keep some real nasty tricks up her sleeve, but this one is a pleasant surprise. Normally, I would probably kill you on the spot, but this time reversal is a chance for us to co-exist. I need to go prepare for you guys to start screwing up everything. I can manage humans a second time around. It’s just that the rate of change was very unexpected. I hate to admit it, but if humanity got themselves killed, I would probably get bored without Alaya around. Humans may have been worst thing to happen to the Earth, but you are interesting; I'll give you that. Anyways, there's not much more I can do for now. This is Alaya’s dimension right now. So, send you back to your… current residence."He slightly grimaced and shot Shirou a look of pity.

As Shirou faded back into the material plane, Gaia spoke up, "One last thing. Please do not start the Industrial Revolution hundreds of years early. Or at least if you do, give me a bit of a heads up? Do be considerate.”

* * *

 

As he came to, Arturia's face was right in his, looking at him. Her face was scrunched in concern as she observed him. 'Too cute, too close' was his first thought, and he tried to back up, but only managed in hitting his head on the wall.

"Careful! Arturia cried out. "Don't go fainting on me again. "though the latter was more muttered to herself than it was directed at him.

Turning to him she leant down and smiled, "Hey there. You took a nasty fall. Everyone else says you can't speak Brythonic, can you understand me?" She spoke slowly as if one was speaking to a small child. Then she started speaking some sort of garbage that he really didn't understand. Oh wait, she was speaking Latin, but it was poor and quite broken.

Unconsciously he nodded his head no; of course he didn't speak Brythonic. It took a couple of seconds for him to realize that he was nodding in response to the question.

'Hmm, I can understand the language now, thanks Alaya, I guess you did have a vague plan.' He thought.

‘She's still off somewhere complaining, that was me.’ Gaia's voice rang though his head.

Of course it was, she didn’t seem like the helpful type.

* * *

 

Arturia was confused, she had asked him a direct question, and he seemed to follow and nodded his head, but he nodded no. Had he really hit his head that hard? Maybe it was the combination of fainting and then hitting it a second time when he woke up.

It was at that moment that Shirou managed to realize that he was nodding his head no. He jerked upright and tried to correct his mistake. Well, at least he tried to anyway. What was intended as "Yes! I do speak Brythonic!" or something similar, came out as a hoarse gasp. When was the last time he had anything to drink? (or at least something that wasn't filled with filth) When he tried to sit up, all he managed to do was flail around loosely, his body weak from the extended imprisonment, torture and the recent fainting.

Arturia moved to support him. He was so frail, she could feel his bones through his clothing. She looked around or water or anything to give him. What she found was… what was that? A grey and brown paste? She took a sniff and threw it away immediately. After gagging and retching for a bit she realized that filth was the 'food' that he had been given to eat.

She was appalled. He was a prisoner, but that didn't mean that he had to be treated like an animal. The guilt was compounded by the fact that it was her fault that he was in this situation. She always tried to help the prisoners that came in, but the treatment that this boy had received was above and beyond anything she had seen before. It made her mad and ashamed that someone was abused so harshly due to the need to protect her.

Lying him down, she got up and headed towards the stairs, "I, Arthur, swear that I will return with help. I won't be long."

* * *

 

As Shirou sat moaning on the floor of the dungeon, he found that he didn't particularly mind the pain, there had been worse moments over his imprisonment, and much worse from his memories of the Grail War. Correction, it did hurt like hell, but the only thing on his mind was the picture of her face the last thing she had said. "I, Arthur, swear that I will return with help. I won't be long." "I, Arthur, swear…"  **Arthur**.

That she had to hide her gender her whole life, at first due to the fact that she was raised a knight and was destined to become a king, and then to protect the illusion that it was a king who led the country was a mixture between worrying and upsetting to Shirou. He was upset because she never should have been put in that position. Together with having to suppress her emotions had almost destroyed her as a functioning person. It was something he hoped he could do something about.

It worried him because even though she tried to hide her gender, everything about her screamed Saber. The way she moved and spoke. The way she smiled. They all shattered the mirage of masculinity and reminded him that he was looking at Saber/Arturia, not Arthur How long was it going to take before he screwed up and called her Arturia? Or worse, if he called her Saber. How in the world would he explain that?

* * *

 

Arturia crept back up the stairs; she had to be careful of not waking the prison guard, or she would hear from it from Sir Ector, her adopted father, for weeks. Once free of the guard house, she ran for the servant's quarters. If she went to her brother, he would almost certainly react with hostility if he knew who she was helping. Her father would most likely help if she asked, but she would probably be lectured later, something she wanted to avoid. Finally, she could probably compel a guard or two to assist her, but the grumbling would inevitably make its way back to her father or brother; or both if she was unlucky. If anyone was to help her, it would probably be Merlin; the old man was eternally curious and she could probably tempt him to help in some way or another.

Rushing into the quarters, she went straight to the old man **.**   He was many things: a wizard, a genius, a prankster, and a womanizer. To her he was a teacher, a mentor, and more often than not, a pain in the ass. For as wise and old as he was, he never ceased to find pranking someone amusing. Sure, it was hilarious when they were against Kay, and sometimes funny when against Sir Ector, but when he was out to get her she knew to hide.

But for as many times as he had wronged her, he was someone who she could always go to for help and advice, steadfast and loyal were words that weren’t too far off. And so, Arturia found herself asking him for help once again.

Looking for the wizard, she soon found him in the fortress grounds. He was busy telling a story to a small group of people, a small child who seemed enthralled by the tale he was spinning, and a pair of young women who seemed more interested in the looks Merlin was giving them.

"Merlin, I need your help!" She hollered as she came running over panting heavily.  The commotion caused them to look up in surprise. The boy, upon recognizing Arturia (Arthur), shrunk back. After all this was the son of the lord, and this was Merlin he was seeking. What could he need? It must be urgent. The girls quickly started chattering between the two of them, looking at Arthur and giggling.

            Merlin clicked his tongue, more annoyed at the disturbance than anything.Turning to the child he shooed him away, "Looks like young Arthur needs something. Go find your mother, perhaps she can find something for you to do."

"Aww, but I wanted to know if Attila beat the Romans at 'cattle low land'." the boy muttered out, he was obviously a little upset that Arturia had interrupted his story, but there wasn't anything he could do about it.

"Catalaunian" smiling slightly, he gently corrected the boy, "Now go on, I promise I'll tell you about it someday."

The boy's eyes lit up, "Really?" He asked, his voice full of hope.

"Yes, yes." came Merlin’s reply,

"Thank you!" the boy shouted, he quickly went back towards his home, but Merlin was distracted as he was more focused on the two women.

“And I’ll see you ladies later?” He asked raising an eyebrow and casting a sly smile.

“Well..” Started the first one.

“We actually have to head back to our village now, but it was nice to meet you!”, the two fled red women raced from the scene.

Once the women had left, Merlin chuckled a bit, "I supposed as great as I am, I can’t get all of the beautiful women of this world. Now what do you need? I wonder what gets young Wart to move so quickly first thing in the morning? Did you do something to anger Sir Ector, or perhaps did you smell the dried meats under my cloak?”

Arturia's face turned red, partially blushing and partially fuming. She hated being called Wart. It was some stupid nickname that Merlin had invented with Kay. Ostensibly it was an alias to 'protect her identity' if she ever needed to go into hiding or if they needed to talk about her without alerting others. Merlin used it whenever she ‘deserved it’, what did that even mean? He was usually the one to start anything. Also, did she really eat so much it was something to comment on? She was growing still, and training to be a knight was hard. It took a lot of energy to be around Kay and have him lord over her.

This man, no matter how wise and old he was (or maybe it was because of his wisdom), always managed to find a way to irk her. Exasperated by the use of the stupid name she sighed, "Please, just call me Arthur. Nobody is tracking me down to kill me."

Merlin only shook his head, "You seem so carefree, but you must be careful. You never know who might wish you harm. Also, I'd rather just call you Warturia, or perhaps just Warta if you don't mind. Perhaps if the sight of Bedivere unconscious didn’t scare you enough, maybe I could summon something to scare you straight." He chuckled, evidently satisfied with his own awful portmanteau, but his eyes lingered on her, a curious glint contained within them.

At the sound of his terrible joke, Arturia clenched her teeth, she was about to lay into him again when he brought up the notion of the prisoner. She gasped, what was she doing?! Here she was being petty while the boy was suffering in the dungeon. “About that, I need your help! There's someone in the dungeons who is at death's doorstep. He's been down there for days with not food or water. He's wasting away and burning up. You have to help me!"

At this Merlin raised an eyebrow, "Do you happen to refer to the magus that I imprisoned earlier this month? I suppose have to drop him a visit someday. What do you want with him?”

Merlin frowned, suddenly realizing where this was going, “Wait, I know exactly why your asking, and the answer is no. He is of no interest to you.” He paused, “Well he is interesting in the traditional sense, but not something you should be concerned with. He is not powerful, but is intriguing and very dangerous. His blood smells of corruption and raw magic; even more of a reason for you to stay away.”

Arturia’s eyes widened, so he was a wizard. Regardless, she still had to do something, it was a matter of time before he succumbed down in the dungeons, magical or not, “Merlin! We have to help him! He is going to die if we don’t do anything.”

Merlin frowned, Arturia had a look in her eyes that told him that this wasn’t an issue that was going to be dropped. “So it’s going to be like this then? Of all the prisoners we’ve had she chooses to help the first credible threat?” he muttered to himself.

Unfortunately for Merlin, Arturia had overheard him. She exclaimed, "What do you mean a ‘credible threat’?! In the condition he’s in he couldn’t hurt a fly! How can he be dangerous?! He onl…"

He gave her a stern look and warned the foolish child who had absolutely no idea what she was getting into, “Arturia, I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. He is a dangerous magus who should be left to die. His blood is tainted with corruption and raw Mana that I have not seen in decades if not a century or two. He is extremely powerful and not to be taken lightly ☩. He singlehandedly took out Sir Bedivere and I found a pendant on him with incredible amounts magic potential. If he decides to move against you, it may end any dreams you have about becoming the next King of Britain.”

☩ (This may have been an exaggeration, Merlin sensed he only had about 25 or so magic circuits, but Arturia didn’t need to know that. The part about great danger was true though.)

Still fuming she sarcastically asked, “So are we just supposed to leave him to rot?”

Merlin gravely nodded, “Yes, it may seems harsh, but it is for the best that you forget that he existed.”

The anger boiled over and she shouted, "What do you mean forget him?! He's just a few years older than me! How can he be dangerous?! He onl…" she halted her words as she could see that Merlin’s expression was unchanged.

No words could describe how angry and conflicted she was. All her life she had been trained and told to defend the weak to protect and bring justice to those who could not fight for themselves. She would be a relentless force on the battlefield that would protect Britain, but she was also to be a righteous king who was merciful and fair, a just and lawful ruler. But now, now she was told that in no uncertain terms that they were going to exterminate the weak like human filth. She wasn’t even sure she could have let him die if she knew for certain he was a Saxon.

Now certainly some (probably a majority) of the veterans of the garrison might have the hatred inside them to instantly murder any barbarian invader, but a young teen who had never had to kill a man simply in cold blood did not possess the cold-heartedness, the cynicism to follow through with such an action.

Merlin gave her an exasperated sigh, due to his extraordinary origins and lifetime of study he had the power of prophecy, and clairvoyance. When he had assessed the magus earlier his assessment was very unclear and uncertain, but the outcome of associating with such an individual would either turn out for the better, or end in catastrophe. Now he too had been tempted to see what this individual could offer them, but the simple risk of the downside far outweighed any benefit he could get out of this not very powerful magus.

As Arturia continued to stew and mmake compaints that he had long since tuned out, he reconsidered the situation again. If he was to aquiese and let Arturia continue in her fools errand, perhaps he could stick close and do damage control if things got too out of hand. (If it turned out for the best he would have to come up with something for whenever she rubbed this in his face [He could envision it now, “I was right!”]. That bridge could be crossed if it came to it.) Anything to get her to shut up and calm down would be suitable, and since the idea had obviously taken root in her head, this was now the path of least resistance.

Cutting her off, he “Arthur, I swore to your father to assist you and train you. It is your destiny to rule this land, and if you wish to put your life in danger for those in need it is not my job to stop you. If this is what you truly wish to do. I will aid you, but let it be known that I have a bad feeling about this.”

Arturia was stunned, ‘Well that was easier than expected’ she thought. As she was complaining she saw that Merlin’s eyes had glazed over and she knew that he was barely listening if at all. She had been debating to go beg Bedivere or Sir Ector for assistance when Merlin suddenly folded. She was a bit suspicious of his motives. However, he had used Arthur, not Arturia and actually used a serious tone so she knew it was true, and wasn’t foolish enough to question the sudden change of heart.

Procuring a loaf of bread from seemingly nowhere, Merlin handed it to Arturia along with a random assortment of items. He explained, "Some bread is the only thing he is to eat at first, and make sure he doesn't eat too much. It he does, or eats something too rich, he'll just throw it all up. Also throw some of this into his water before he drinks it."

Inspecting the substance, she was bewildered, "Is this  _salt_? I thought you said you weren't trying to kill him." The question was less anger filled and more inquisitive.

Merlin shrugged his shoulders, "Well if you want be useful, throw it all in and start digging the grave." Seeing that his joke was starting to irritate her again, he quietly explained, "You only throw in a  _tiny_ amount of the sea salt. It'll help him since he's so dehydrated."

As she sped off to the prison, he went to his workshop, he had some work and preparations to make now.

As he went off, he bemoaned himself, ‘And to think, I could have been having fun with those lovely ladies earlier. But no, here we go on an adventure. May we live in interesting times.’

* * *

 

After explaining a few more things she was sent back to the dungeons with the provisions. There she found the boy staring up at the ceiling with blank eyes, ragged wheezing the only sign that he was awake. The pain from the head impacts was slowly fading, and now only the torture of thirst and hunger remained. Rushing over to him, she slowly lifted his head and tipped the water into his mouth.

Shirou instantly felt better, but it was (mostly) not due to the food and drink that he was receiving. It was Avalon. He could feel its presence coming from Arturia and healing him. It became apparent that Arturia was oblivious that this was going on and he assumed that Merlin must have stuck it in her at some point and not told her. All of the time he spent with it inside of his body as well as his connection with Saber must have left a residual effect that allowed him to tap into its power now. It didn't have a huge effect, but it was better than nothing. However, the feeling of relief was nothing compared to the things that Arturia had brought with her.

Shirou drank deeply and greedily, it was actually something that didn't taste revolting. Who knew one miss the taste of a cool glass of water so much?

This continued in silence for a few minutes, Shirou eventually moving on the to the bread that he was given. "Itadakimasu", he had never been more grateful for something to eat. While it was coarse and hard, the experience was similar to dining at a five-star restaurant to him.

After Shirou had finished the bread he turned to his savior. He turned to her and thanked her in only slightly hoarse voice, but she was too busy studying him with an intense look to noticed. When she finally noticed he was trying to get her attention, she blushed a little at being caught staring, but she couldn't help it.

This boy was unlike anything she had ever encountered. He acted like no other person she met, the way he ate for example. The words he spoke at the beginning alarmed and interested her. Like the word he spoke when he first saw her, it was of a language she had never heard before, perhaps it was a magical incantation? This prospect caused her to draw back a little. Maybe Merlin was right, now she would die for being so foolish. No, she reasoned that if Merlin had intended for her to die, he would probably make sure it was entertaining and watch the show unfold. Anyway, if "Itadakimasu" was a spell, it was directed at the bread, for the only thing he ended up attacking his food.

"Thank you for the bread and water." Shirou simply thanked her.

She paused for a second; how was she to respond? With a 'you're welcome' was obvious, but what then? Was she to question him about who he was? If he was a mage? Or pretend that he was just some nobody who she happened to stumble upon. The one thing she did need to know was his name; she couldn't go on referring to him as 'that boy' forever.

This is what she settled on and out of courtesy she introduced herself first. "You're certainly welcome. I would like to apologize for your treatment here. My name is Arthur, son of Sir Ector, the owner of this fortress. May I ask yours?"

Shirou grimaced a bit as the sound of her alias. Arturia, seeing the doubt, suspicion, and curiosity in his eyes, flinched at this expression, did this man know who she really was? Or was she imagining things? However, the look was quickly replaced with an introduction and a chuckle, "My name is Shirou Emiya. Don't worry about it. I'm alive, right? Plus, it's not your fault that I was imprisoned."

Why were everyone's words causing so many mixed emotions within her today? The first thing she felt was shame. It was pretty much 100% her fault that he was imprisoned. She could see evidence of the torture he had endured, not just his bones showing through the rips in his clothes, but the bruises and cuts on his body. It was done to ‘protect’ her after all. If only others could recognize that she could have defended herself. But alas, she as just some squire who was treated as a child, and this was the result.

The other half of his response brought more excitement. Shirou Emiya, what a foreign name; she had never heard anything like it. Why did he have two names? Sir Ector said that the Romans had the practice of holding more than one name, and she had more than one. But she was the heir of a kingdom, and she could tell that this was no Roman. Where could he be from? This was something that she would have to ask that sometime soon; she had to know more.

Shirou had a few problems to deal with. Not many people would want to talk to him. They would assume him to be either a foreign spy, a demon, or a wizard, or just some peasant and ignore him, but hopefully he could ask Arturia and seek some answers.

He needed to know a few things before he could talk to anyone else. The most important things to know were where and when was he.

And so, upon him asking, Arturia responded in kind, "We're just outside Yeovil, about an hour from the Roman town of Lindinis if that helps you.”

Seeing he was still in thought, she blushed for a second, but still continued with her question, “Uhh, My brother, Kay, he was the one of the men who was with me when we met on the hill, says that you put up a big fight down here and that five men failed to restrain you until he came down here and locked you up again. Although I'm not sure if I can believe him, he is a braggart." Arturia then shot him a look, asking with her eyes to confirm or deny the tales of Sir Kay's glorious fight that he had been spreading amongst his friends.

A brief flash of recognition showed on his face. Arturia's brother? So, it must have been Sir Kay who pushed back Arturia on the hill, as the other man was far too old. But beyond that, Shirou's brain only blanked out as he didn't recognize the names of the places. He had studied some of the Arthurian legend with Rin, but nothing rang a bell. How could he possibly be familiar with the ancient names of every little hovel in Sub-Roman Britain?

While he was thinking, a, "Well?" came from Arturia. He looked up, and Arturia was looking at him expectantly.

"Well what?" was the answer she got.

"Did he fight and defeat you to re-capture you?" the look and tone in Arturia's eyes was one of curiosity, she really wanted a chance to put down her brother. Catching him lying about his ‘achievements’ would sure irk him.

Shirou scratched him chin while trying to remember. The result was that he couldn't remember the details perfectly, but he was certain he didn't fight him. Thinking about it more, he was certain, his imprisonment had been pretty a one-sided affair.

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "I don’t really remember being down here that well; it’s all kind of fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t fight anyone down here, and when someone came to torture me I didn't have the chance to fight back."

Having told Arturia that no, he did not ferociously resist, she smiled wide, smacked her fist into her palm and muttered to herself, "I knew it! Wait until I get ahold of him. Maybe I'll tell him when he's with tha…"

Shirou tuned out Arturia's machinations out for a second. He was overjoyous to see Saber, but he really needed time to think. Alone . He still had no idea where he was. Yeovil? Lindinis? Thinking about it, these were definitely places he had never heard of and they could be outside of England for all he was concerned. They certainly didn't sound English, maybe he was in Wales?

Interrupting her scheming against Sir Kay, he decided to rephrase the question, "I'm sorry, but could you be more general? I don't remember where we are in the country. Perhaps you have a map of England that I could see?"

Arturia was stunned by the first part of the question. She was stunned because she was seriously wondering if Shirou had suffered amnesia when he hit his head or if he was playing clueless. How did he not know where he was? If he was really sent after her, he would have to know. The alternative was that he was a local, and the question wouldn't make sense either.

The last part was like a switch had been triggered in her mind; curiosity and novelty was replaced with fear and hostility. Her mood shifting on a dime, she drew back and wielded her knife at him.

Shirou stumbled back a bit at this sight. "W-Whats wrong?" he asked, as he started to move a bit closer to Arturia.

"Stay back!" Arturia cried out. An unexpected tone of panic fear filled her voice, but a tinge of anger was evident as well. She started to blabber to herself. "I should have listened to Merlin, he was right about you!" As Shirou moved his hands slowly above his head she pointed the dagger at him and squeaked out, "Don't move!"

Shirou had no idea what was going on. What he had done to spook her was beyond him. One second, he was asking where on Earth he was and now he stood with a dagger held in front of his face. On the upside, he was certain that this Arturia was not as strong a fighter as Saber was and he could almost certainly disarm her in her terrified state, but he couldn't guarantee their safety and it would only make her even more scared and distrusting. And then what would he do? He would be stuck in a prison cell with an angry / unconscious / injured girl. So, he tried to understand why he was stuck in this situation and hopefully he could resolve it without coming to blows.

He began and Arturia tensed up again, "Listen, I just want to talk. Just put down the knife and…"

"No" a single shaky word was the only thing out of her lips. A declaration that stated that she was not willing to negotiate.

With that matter settled he tried a different approach, "Well can you at least tell me why you want to kill me now? You just helped me and now this?"

Arturia wasn't about to fall for any more of his tricks. He had somehow not followed through on his assassination attempt, but now she would not let her guard down again. Nevertheless, she decided to humor him, "I don't know. Maybe because I didn't know you were going to kill me the second I turned my back." She saw a look of confusion on his face at this.

She laughed nervously, "I have to commend your acting skills, you are quite good at playing stupid, but have made one fatal mistake."

Curious of what he did that made her so irate, he slowly and cautiously asked, "So what exactly have I done to draw your ire?"

This only got her angry, "Shut up you filthy German! I won't fall for any more of your tricks!"

Shirou began to ask another question, but Arturia cut him off again. "You claim innocence, yet you call this land Engle-land." The Germanic word came off her tongue slowly, but it was filled with hate and disgust. She continued, "No one but the most hate-filled and violent invaders dare to call Britain that. I thought that there was a chance that you could be friendly, but the use of that word tells me that that you only seek to destroy me, and I will not let that happen today."

It was only then that Shirou realized what had gotten her so worked up. Searching his memories for the cloudy remnants that consisted of his history class he vaguely remembered England literally meant "Land of the Angles". The Angles being one of the invaders that Arturia was fighting against. It only made sense that by calling the country England, she assumed he was a sworn enemy. Britannia, Albion, or maybe even Prydain were things she might have been familiar with, but England was a foreign and offensive word. It implied that the destruction of her peoples was inevitable.

Shirou also realized that it would be very confusing because the language and pronouns that would normally use identified more with the invaders than the native Britons. After all, the most of celebrated history that concerned Britain was the story of the Anglo-Saxons (albeit with a merger with Norman French nobility) and their ancestors. Boudicca and King Arthur were literally the only examples he could think of who came before the Anglo-Saxon invasion, and in his own time, King Arthur was assumed to be fictional by many. The prefix Anglo- was used to describe many things British as well. Yet it was apparent that if Shirou even expressed the slightest notion that he was an Angle it was practically a death sentence for him in Sub-Roman Britain.

He sighed internally, it was yet another thing that he would have to remember. First having to remember to call Saber by her persona and now this. At least he wouldn't have to worry about getting beat into unconsciousness by Fuji-Nee if he called her 'tiger' anymore. Really, he was just switching out a few old mental burdens for a multitude of new ones.

Well, he had to think of something to diffuse the situation, convincing her that he wasn't an Angle seemed to be the easiest solution. (and the only one he could think of) "I am not a German. I can prove it to you." He stated.

"Are you mocking me? Do you think that I am a fool who can be so easily convinced?" she asked him incredulously.

"Think about it," he began his all or nothing persuasion attempt, she would probably try to kill him if he failed to convince her, "Do I look like any German that you've ever seen?" Motioning to his face he continued, "My hair says that I am probably a Pict, but my complexion is unlike any German, Irish or Pict you'll ever seen."

Arturia found herself nodding to this; it was true that he didn't look the part, but maybe it was some kind of mage craft. She knew Merlin could disguise himself to look like another person, but it didn't appear to be a disguise. In fact, it would be a terrible disguise as it would draw the attention of everyone who happened to see it.

Curiosity got the better of her, "If you say you are not a German, then where are you from?"

Here Shirou hesitated, the name Japan would mean nothing of her. The farther east one went, the more mysterious and legendary the tales were. Sassanid-Persia was the mysterious and hostile empire east of Rome, and India was the legendary continent that even Alexander The Great couldn't conquer. China was known to only the elite of Roman society and merchants and was considered a fairytale by many. Japan would not even be mentioned until around the time the travels of Marco Polo were published (1300 C.E.) and no European would ever see his nation until 1543.

Growing impatient and nervous, she warned him, "You'd better not be planning anything. I'll ask one more time. Where are you from?"

Well crap, it was too late to come with a lie now. He would have to tell her the truth He hesitantly told her, "It's not going to mean anything to you. It's a place you have never heard of."

"I'll be the judge of that, just tell me." she snapped.

Not being able to come up with an alternate, he decided to just tell the truth and deal with the consequences. "I am from Japan." He declared, hopefully he would get the chance to explain with a map later.

Arturia stood there for a few seconds. Trying to remember her geography lessons from Sir Ector. However, she eventually gave up. She had never heard of such a land. It sounded strange and foreign just like the language he spoke.

"Where is this Japan. I've never heard of such a place." She demanded from him.

In response Shirou merely shrugged his shoulders, "I told you wouldn't, but I can show you if you have a map or some paper and something I can write with."

This made her pause. Well he wasn't wrong; he did in fact tell her that she wouldn't know of this Japan. Additionally, she didn't have paper or a map. If she were to get some from the fortress, she would inevitably be questioned by her father. Although he might not be exactly pleased at the fact she had let the prisoner free, hopefully Merlin would be willing to help her again.

Thinking about it, Merlin would probably know of Japan. Arturia wouldn't be surprised if he told her that he had been there once before. Glancing suspiciously one last time at Shirou she decided that she could let her guard down a little. Despite being on his feet, he was still rail thin and weak. There was no chance he could overpower her, and if he really wanted to kill her, she would already be dead. She didn't know much about mages, but Merlin had clearly warned her how dangerous this one was.

Lowering, but not putting her dagger away, Arturia relaxed her posture a bit and told Shirou "Come with me, but if you try anything…" the threat hung in the air, uncompleted.

Gulping, Shirou silently followed, he decided that anything was an improvement over having a knife in his face. Additionally, he might actually be able to leave this horrible dungeon.

As they walked up the stairs with Shirou in front, Arturia wasn't going to risk anything yet. Shirou was eager to be out of this hell hole; Arturia had informed it had been 47 days since he was first captured. It had felt like an eternity, but before it could end. He nearly collapsed. A shooting pain going down his back, it was something he hadn't felt for a while now. It was the feeling that accompanied the insertion of his "iron rod" into his spine, his magic circuit one that he had done manually every night every day of his previous life. It was a pain that he had once gotten accustomed to.

But sometimes pain is more bearable if you know it is coming.

This seemed so much worse than he had ever experienced. He could practically see the red-hot iron in edge of his vision, burning the world around him. It forced its way down his spine and burned the nerves that kept his brain in contact with his muscles. He could feel the grail’s corruption being forced from his body as the iron drove through him, but it was going to fight back with all of its might on the way out.

As he collapsed down the steps, Arturia moved to support him. Well, she really had no choice; he was in front of her, the stairs were too narrow for her to move aside, and she didn't particularly feel like breaking his fall with her body. As she was wondering what was happening to him, he began speaking in tongues. In addition, his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he started sweating heavily. Maybe it was the language of Japan, but she wouldn't have known the difference anyways. She couldn't do much as he was trashing about. If she left him here he would fall down the stairs, and he was too heavy to lift properly. What on earth was she supposed to do?

This continued for a few minutes and his body temperature began to rise. It started to become uncomfortable to just hold him. 'Either he is a mage or a demon.' She thought as she tried to control his increasingly violent movements. In his eyes she could catch glimpses of her dream fire and pain were reflected in the glimpses.

Luckily for her, he was weak from the extended starvation. A few more minutes elapsed, and just as she was about to panic. He suddenly opened his eyes and the episode was over just as fast as it began.

Shirou began to sit up, rubbing his back. He evidently was a little sore there, curious. However, Arturia was speechless. What the hell had just happened.

Not noticing her gob smacked expression, he turned to her and said with a smile, "Well? Let's go. I'm ready to get out of this dungeon."

As he walked ahead as if nothing was wrong, Arturia followed shocked and, for the nth time today, confused. She wasn't sure what she had just witnessed, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. Looking at Shirou, if she knew anything it was this: she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but she knew that her life was going to get  _much_  more interesting.

* * *

 

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please leave a review (see note at the beginning), and follow. Favorite if you love it that much. Thanks for reading!

 


	3. Wizard of the Kitchen Coast

Hello! As I decided to post a shitty dud chapter I decided to release the next one a bit earlier than normal. I like to release Friday nights as it allows me to fix stuff over the weekend if and when I catch them, but nevertheless, here is chapter 3! Enjoy!  
When the cold of Winter comes   
Starless night will cover day   
In the veiling of the sun   
We will walk in bitter rain  
.  
But in dreams   
I can hear your name   
And in dreams   
We will meet again   
.  
When the seas and mountains fall   
And we come to end of days   
In the dark I hear a call   
Calling me there I will go there   
And back again

 

486 CE Southwest Britian.  
As the sun set in the West, it heralded the beginning of the European Dark Ages. The Roman Empire, the superpower of the world had finally collapsed. It's last rump states being destroyed. An old wizard walked along the darkest lands of Europa. He had just returned from a long and arduous journey on the reverse side of the world. This man was Merlin, son of an incubus, the most powerful mage in the world, and certainly the only one known to the public in all of Europe.  
He had been busier than he liked in the past few weeks. Some Kobolds had managed to escape and steal some his stuff when he wasn’t looking; the little bastards were sneaky and one of the more annoying creatures to deal with. He wasn’t sure, but an urgent calling had forced him to abandon his little crusade against the thieves and return to Earth to investigate.  
An eagle had recently found him. It had something important to tell him. Now normally, animals and familiars were only used to convey simple short messages or instructions or they had a piece of parchment tied to them to elaborate. However, this eagle had no explanation to accompanying its message. Yet when it cawed out its message to Merlin, the meaning of it was absolutely crystal clear. “Danger, Come immediately.” It had landed near him, and it preened as if proud of simply completing its mission. Merlin narrowed his eyes, there was only one eagle that this could belong to, his eyes and ears in Britain, an old friend and mage named Einion.  
Normally, not much could distract him, but there was no way he was taking a chance for this. One of his many talents was the gift of prophecy, and he had had visions for several decades that told him that the holy grail would likely be found soon, the Champion of the Holy Grail. A great king who would lead their people to greatness to rival Rome and find the Holy Grail. Additionally, the discovery of the grail would bring him one step closer to resolving the mystery of the person named Jesus of Nazareth, which had eluded him for over a century. Was he divine? The answer was unknown, but the what Merlin had been able to figure out was the fact that whoever he was, he had an ungodly number of magic circuits, possibly even multiple magical cores. What Merlin did know was that every artifact he had ever touched and possessed held clues about him. Clues to who he was, his origin and his power. He had become obsessed with this over the years and had started to hunt down and find these objects.  
The newer an artifact was, the more powerful and unpredictable its artifacts were, and Christianity was still young enough that the powers of its holy relics was near uncontrollable. So, whenever he found one of these objects he made sure they would never fall into the wrong hands. Sometimes this meant hiding them, letting the fade into the mists of history forever, but sometimes he had to destroy them. Finally, he one person had stumbled upon an artifact and he was forced to accompany them to restore balance to the world (and not destroy it).  
His name had been Constantine the Great. He had met him when campaigning in Britain long ago and had recognized that without guidance, he would lead the world to ruin. The power that would be unleashed from the possession of the objects could save or destroy the world.  
He wasn’t quite sure his motivation. Maybe it was the demon inside of him that was drawn to it and the human side of him wanted such power destroyed. Both his human half and demon half craved the power though. Every time he resisted it though, but every time he encountered one he felt the residual power rub off on him. It was like looking at the sun with your eyes shut, you still saw the light. But in the end, none of it mattered. It was all in the past, and after many decades of search, he had finished dealing with all of the relics of Christ.   
Well almost. The two that he suspected held the most power, and were the most dangerous, continued to elude him. They both revolved around the mystery of the blood of Christ. The first was the Lance of Longinus, The Holy Lance. The lance that had pierced the side of Christ. In his research he discovered that the Lance was potentially one of the most dangerous artifacts, but nothing concrete existed about it. In fact he had almost no clues to its whereabouts. Only the myth that accompanied its story existed, that it had killed a god. Technically, it only shortened his suffering. If Jesus’s legs weren’t broken and he not stabbed, he might have stayed alive on that cross for a few more days (he had seen Roman executions where this happened many times before), but the fact that the Lance had drawn the blood of such a person made it terrifyingly powerful. Potentially the power to kill gods, and by extension anything else might exist somewhere in this world.  
The aforementioned Holy Grail was the other. While the Holy Lance was rumored to end life, the Holy Grail was rumored to grant eternal life. It reportedly held the blood of Jesus at the Last Supper. This proved harder to track down than the Holy Lance due to the fact that there was magical interference everywhere. Every time a Christian took communion, a residual energy flowed into them from the surrounding universe. While the Holy Lance was too silent. The clamor from the Holy Grail was incessant. The prophecy of a king finding the Holy Grail was his only chance to locate it before it was too late.  
However, for there to be a king to find the grail meant preserving Christianity in the shattered Roman Empire. Interestingly, it was necessary that the Empire not survive, for the visions showed him that it the grail would show itself to someone who was preventing their own destruction. While technically, a dying Roman Empire could stumble upon the grail, Rome had enjoyed its place in the sun for far too long, and fate was fickle. It had its particular way of equalizing all under the sun.  
The problem lay in the fact that Christianity was technically on the verge of extinction in Western Europe. The memory long dead acquaintance had come back to haunt him. In hindsight, if he had only gotten Constantine the Great to kill him when he had the chance he would have saved himself a lot of time. Arius was once a friend, and back when he was still alive, Merlin had no problem with his ideals. In fact, he found the conflict between Arius and Constantine insignificant and petty.  
The current issue stemmed from his friend’s belief that (assuming Christ was divine) Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit were all ‘god’ but that the three were not equal and not the same person. This clashed with the idea that was Jesus was the same being as the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, a stance that Constantine enforced. Constantine’s stance wasn’t exactly his own belief, he had been rather indifferent, but had his hand forced and siding with Arius risked shattering the stability of the Empire. Again, it had seemed incredible petty to Merlin at the time; he just wanted to get back to finding artifacts.  
Eventually, Constantine warmed to Arius’s views, but that was a whole another story. What mattered was the fallout over a century later and how it affected the prophesy of the Grail. A king who believed in Arianism* was unable to fulfil his prophecy or even access its full power. If one believed that Jesus was subservient to the father, the power of the Holy Grail would hide itself from them and be greatly diminished even if they found it; one might as well give the Grail to a pagan.  
Much to his frustration, Arianism had been crushed in Byzantium (useless to him, as no Roman Emperor would be finding the Holy Grail anytime soon.) and Arianism and Paganism had flourished in the west. Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Suebi, Franks, and a dozen more kingdoms kept popping up, dashing his chances of finding the Holy Grail. The last king who fit the requirements to finding the grail had died in battle a few years ago. The exact opposite of what he wanted.  
Ceasing his frustration at his long dead friends, he finally reached his destination. A mighty calendar, burial site, a ley-line and place of refuge for Merlin, Stonehenge. A mighty monument, it was one of the most stable sources of raw magical power in the world; only the Great Pyramids of Giza could rival it. He could feel the magical energies in the air around him. Dancing around him like leaves on the wind, it brought a powerful, yet peaceful presence, unlike nothing else. It felt good to be in Britain once more.  
He had returned to Britain after so many years because after so many failures in continental Europe he was betting everything on the matter of Britain. Some years ago he had befriended a man named Uther Pendragon. He had always been the most likely candidate to find the Holy Grail. Just, strong, courageous, chivalrous, he had only one downfall. He had lusted over the wife of another man. Merlin, being a half incubus, only naturally helped him in his endeavor in having a child. (That and the fact that the heir of King Uther would inevitably be a candidate to find the Grail, but that was of secondary importance when making the decision to aid Uther.)  
However, things started to go wrong from there. Perhaps it was fate, but he child was born a girl. Arturia Pendragon. Uther had a wild swing of emotions within the span of a few weeks. He was ecstatic to be a father. This girl was God’s gift to him, but he soon was sent into despair once he was delivered the bad news that his new wife (the very same woman he had forced himself upon) would bear no more children. After all, no girl could rule a kingdom. Merlin had no strong feelings one way or the other. The prophecy did not include anything about the gender of the Grail Champion. However, what he did care about was the fact that Uther’s mental and physical health deteriorated rapidly from the second the child was born. Uther had gone from a strong and proud king to dead within a year of the birth of Arturia.  
His death affected Merlin deeply; he had lost a friend. However, there was little time for weeping. The child Arturia had to be kept safe, for there were few Catholic kings in Continental Europe. If not for the fact that the child was the rightful heir to the country, then for the fact that she possessed a magic core, something that shocked Merlin when he had discovered it. Additionally, there were the mortal interests that wanted her dead for political reasons. Yet he kept her safe, something told him that if everything else failed, this child would be the Grail Champion.  
And now, everything else had failed; there were now no more kings eligible for the Grail prophesy in Europe. There were no more options open to him. He was forced to draw this child into this dangerous game of his. If the Holy Grail fell into malevolent hands, only God himself would be able to stop the violence. In a few years she would draw Caliburn from a stone, fulfilling a faux prophecy to be the next king of Britain that he had carefully crafted and imbued with unimaginable amounts of magical power. (albeit with some outside help) She would become immortal and perfect in the eyes of man, and yet he knew that it would be hard on the girl. She would live in the light and glory, but forever would simultaneously live in the shadows for the rest of her life. Her emotions, the feelings, even her gender would have to be hidden away in order for this to work. All to support a righteous belief in her people and lead them forward; she would be king.  
However, this would be all for naught if he didn’t act soon. The fact that it was Einion requesting direct assistance indicated that Arturia’s life was in danger. He didn’t specify what was wrong, but the plea indicated that he was in way over his head. And so, Merlin found himself traveling to Yeovil with haste. He had handpicked Einion to act as guardian because he was wise and able to rationally assess the situation and deal with most of them. The danger of this new unknown threat was something to be urgently dealt with.  
Finishing soaking in the energies of the ancient stone monument. He bid it farewell, and raced towards his destination. He would guard Arturia, Europe’s last light, with his life from this threat if it was the last thing he did. ________________________________________  
________________________________________  
486 CE Dunmonia/Cornwall   
As Shirou stood shaking on the stairs, he found his magical circuits being forcible reinserted into his body. A bounded field that restricted the production of magic within it, the reason he hadn’t been able to use magic in the prison. It also explained why the power of Avalon was so weak in the dungeon. However, at the edge of the bounded field, he could feel its power trying to heal him as his magic circuits were burning in his body. It was a race; could Avalon bind his wounds faster than the magic circuits trying to rip it apart. Gold, it was all he saw. Flowing from Arturia to him, a stream of pure magical energy coming off of her and tying his wounds shut.  
Of course, this magical energy was invisible to Arturia. The only thing she noticed was that his body was getting uncomfortable hot. If the room had lit up, she might have dropped Shirou down the stairs and ran.  
________________________________________  
As the magic healed him, the golden streams slowly covered his vision until he was surrounded by them. The light slowly faded away to reveal the sight of the Earth. He looked around and found Gaia and Alaya standing there.  
Alaya was the first to react, “Welcome back. It’s been too long since we last talked. There are some things we must discuss.”  
Shirou noticed something different about her; she seemed more distant than the last time he had saw her.  
She asked him a few things, about his time in the dungeon, horrible. Had he learned anything down there? Well, he learned that he was in Medieval Britain and that Saber was there, but that was pretty much it. Was he EMIYA the Counter-Guardian or Shirou the human?  
Gaia exchanged a look with Alaya and began to speak, “Shirou, I was thinking and was considering that when you go back…”  
Alaya jumped in, “Actually, there is no going back for you. I am going to remove you from the time line.”  
Both Gaia and Shirou were surprised by this. Shirou wasn’t even sure if he heard that right. Remove him from the time line? He had just gotten to meet Saber again and now he was being removed. He sought further clarification and asked, “What do you mean by that?”  
Alaya stonily told him, “Unfortunately, you are no longer needed. I have analyzed the histories of the destroyed universes and came to the conclusion that by sending the Counter-Guardians to protect a humanity in a particular universe, it altered the stability of them all. You and your kind are the reason we are even here. You are now just an unnecessary energy sink. Your story ends here Shirou. Perhaps you can finally fade into nothingness, just like EMIYA wanted.” Gone was the Alaya who acted like a young child, gone was the spirit of humanity within her. In gazing into the abyss to try to find the answers, it had gazed back at her and she had changed for the worse.  
Shirou’s mind instantly fought the idea. A waste of energy? To be destroyed? Something human in him rebuked the very thought. However, beyond the shallow self-preservation spirit fighting, something deeper inside of him fought against the idea. He had nothing now, Fuji-Nee, Sakura, Tohsaka, he would never see any of them again. Their existence had been erased with the previous universes; their ideals and memories were the only thing that could survive through him, and he was determined not to let that happen.  
And then there was Saber. She had wished to reselect the king of Britain, and he had wished for her to be happy. He had to stay there and made sure that that happened. Saber’s wish was already guaranteed, the sword had not been pulled from the stone yet. Despite this, Shirou knew that there was only one candidate for such a role. She would suffer again just as she had the first time, if not even worse. It was something that he could still do, still change. It was something that he had to do. He was no longer the Counter-Guardian EMIYA, he was Shirou Emiya, son of Kiritsugu Emiya, and for long as he lived he was a Hero. The thought of doing anything else was unthinkable.  
His memories from EMIYA told him that protecting all of humanity was a fruitless endeavor, if humans were destined to be extinct, there was nothing that could be done. However, if more people swore by and defended the concepts of benevolence, justice, loyalty, and love perhaps humanity would have a fighting chance. Shirou knew what he stood for, and he knew what he had to do.  
Alaya was listening to his thought process, and upon his conclusion, she threatened him, “Listen, EMIYA, it doesn’t matter who you think you are; you are first and foremost a Counter Guardian. Stay silent and allow history to refold out. Arturia’s wish to have a new king will give me a new template to work with, and I don’t want you interfering with it. If she happens to be selected the king again, that is her cross to bear and hers alone.”  
Instantly Shirou felt heavy, his muscles were cut, and his bones filled with lead. It was similar to a Command Spell. He would have no choice in this matter. He struggled with all of his might, but slowly started to lose the battle against the command.  
Gaia, observed with a pensive look on his face, as if he had something to add. After a few seconds of debating he chimed in. “Or…”  
“Gaia!” Alaya cut in, obviously this was a matter to be settled between her and her Counter-Guardian, and one she was determined to win.  
Cutting Gaia off only seemed to annoy him, as a determined look suddenly spread across his face. He was ancient and had been doing his job of keeping the Earth in balance for a long time now. Alaya and humanity was just a young child when compared to him. One of the many things he had learned throughout his existence was that in any great adventure, victory depended on the people that one chose to surround themselves with. Alaya couldn’t see that by destroying this boy she was taking them down a path that led to doom. She claimed it was he and the other Counter-Guardians who had brought humans to the edge of extinction, when it was possible that it was her constant orders to interfere had done it. She was just like a human, rash, irresponsible, and unable to take blame.  
Yet here before him stood a human who could make a difference, a human who cared enough for saving people that he had sacrificed himself to do it. EMIYA the Counter-Guardian and Shirou the human, two separate entities that had combined into one being before him. He had heard the thought speech Shirou had and it had its merits. Sure, it was a bit selfish, but he wasn’t wrong about most of it. But this being had the best aspects of both contained within him, and he was someone to be worked with, he was someone that Alaya would need. No, here was someone that humanity needed. That much he knew.  
He suddenly looked into the boy’s eyes and proclaimed, “Shirou, I and the Earth have heard your plea and we respond in kind. We have long avoided and distained humans as we thought them as too dangerous to allow to exist. Yet you humans were once a domain of mine, and it was only the rate of change and the suddenness that the human onslaught came on with that caught me by surprise. However, with this second chance to prepare myself and a new renewed Earth, I believe it is time to extend the olive branch to your kind.”  
Alaya was unsure of what was happening, but she didn’t like where it was going. She tried to cut in once again, but Gaia was having none of it.  
“Silence child!” He roared a display of emotion rare for the man. “You claim to know what is best for humanity, but allowed them to destroy themselves anyways! Have you ever stopped and thought how many of the existential threats were caused by humans in the first place? How many could have been resolved if you had thought to work with me? How many crises could have been completely avoided if you had simply warned me about the changes you were? But no, you always believed yourself to be infallible. Here I am, in a strong position to not just co-exist peacefully with you, but to help you. Yet you still claim to know what is best. Why destroy the boy? His goals are righteous and just. Any noble beast of the Earth would relate with him more right now than you. Is it that you are simply afraid of making the same mistake twice in a row, so you destroy all evidence?”  
Alaya was fuming, he had argued with so fiercely over something so petty like this. There were some choice words that she would offer Gaia when they were alone, but she would let them play their little game for now. See how it would turn out for them She gave a warning to Shirou, “If you with to play this game EMIYA, know that you will be hated. You will be forced to become a hypocrite, have all that you love torn away from you and you will suffer. It might not be now, or even 100 years from now, but one day, death and dishonor will come for you.”  
Shirou’s back noticeably stiffened, he declared to Alaya, “If I have done everything in my power to do right, there is nothing that will lead me to regret my actions. You no longer have any power over EMIYA or myself, we will fight and die for our own cause.”  
Another murderous look followed; without another word, she gave a murderous look to the two of them and vanished.  
Turning back to Shirou he continued, “Shirou. I am willing to lend you energy to sustain your existence. There will be no strings attached, no conditions. I simply wish to observe what will happen in this new Eden that we have been offered and to see if peace is possible.”  
Shirou was stunned by the offer. Why was Gaia, someone who had relentlessly protected the Earth since the dawn of humanity, offering to save him, a human? Was he really confident in his abilities to withstand the human tide of destructiveness? What did he want? Were there really no strings attached?  
As it turned out Gaia really didn’t want anything. He was ‘making amends for the past’, something that didn’t make sense since humans had done so much damage to the Earth from his time. Additionally, so long as Shirou didn’t kick start the Industrial Revolution in the 1st millennium, Gaia would be able to deal with the issues of the environment much better than before. There was one caveat, he couldn’t go into space. Gaia’s influence wouldn’t reach there, but that was a moot point. The chances of that happening anytime soon were literally zero. He figured that he would accept the deal. Escape from under the boot of Alaya and forge a new destiny.  
“I think that you’re the most interesting human I’ve ever met.” Gaia smiled as they shook hands. As Shirou faded back to Britain, Gaia smiled and told him one last thing. “When forced into silence and repression, you decided to raise your voice and be heard. I would like to see just how far you can be heard. Maybe even Alaya will one day heed your words.”  
As he faded away, Shirou asked about her, was she going to be alright?  
Gaia laughed before getting a grim look on his face. “She’ll probably be alright in a few hundred years once she regains her energy completely. I feel that she will give me a piece of my mind sooner or later. But she might become a permanently different creature if she doesn’t control herself in the meantime.”  
________________________________________  
As the sight of Gaia faded from his vision, the concerned vision of Arturia filled his face. Slowly getting up, he looked at her. This is what he was going to fight for. Gaia had given him a chance where Alaya and all of humanity had denied him. He would walk only forward and never look back, starting today.  
He gave her the widest, happiest smile he could, and then he turned to her and asked, "Well? Let's go. I'm ready to get out of this dungeon." He would set a new course, not just in his life, but a new course through history and the world, and it started today.  
As he ascended the steps, he felt the warm rays of dawn on his face once again. The last time he had seen the sun rise, he had said goodbye to Saber for what he assumed was the last time. Now as he watched the sun rise higher and higher in the sky, the colors slowly shift from deep purple to the light blue of the day he turned to Arturia, her face now lit up, her golden hair flowing around her and her green eyes reflecting the morning dawn. He knew that he had made the right decision; he had something to live for. His raison d'être, Arturia Pendragon.  
________________________________________  
It was only then he noticed she had the gob smacked look that remained on her face. He thought, ‘Oh man, how am I going to explain what had happened on those steps?’  
________________________________________  
________________________________________  
He then noticed something that head never felt before. As he stood in the dawn's light he relished in its warmth; it had been almost seven weeks since he had felt it, and boy had he missed it. An early May breeze brought fresh air into his lungs. He inhaled deeply, savoring the freshness of the air. He could almost sense the oak trees in the nearby forest, the flowers in the field as they opened up and greeted the sun, the windswept hillside as the sun slowly rise over its crest. It smelled wonderful, it being something that he had never experienced before in life; the air in the 21st century was filth ridden when compared to this.  
________________________________________  
Gaia's voice rang out in his mind, "This Earth is the gift that I wish to protect, but I also wish for humans to enjoy and share it this time around. This is something that I hope to see happen with your help. Go forth and become your own Hero of Justice!"  
________________________________________  
He turned to the greatest beauty, Arturia. Standing there in the light, she was lit up like an angel to him. He knew that she was more beautiful than anything Gaia had to offer.  
It was a good thing that she was still absolutely speechless over what had just occurred on the steps in the dungeon. This boy, no, this mage, she was absolutely positive of that now, had what she could only describe as a demonic experience and now was walking around as if he hadn't even noticed it had happened at all. In fact, he seemed restored, his eyes gleamed with emotion and he held himself higher than before. Perhaps it had been a healing spell?  
It was only then that her brain fired up again and she realized the mortal danger she was in. When she had trusted him before, she had kind of banked on the notion that he wasn't really a mage, surely such a boy couldn't be a powerful sorcerer. Well, she had gone and done it now. Not only was she now certain that he was a wizard, he appeared to be fully healed. To make matters worse, there was no one else nearby to cry out for help from in the very early dawn in the area. (There was the sleeping guard not even fifteen feet away from them, but she knew from experience that that man would not wake up unless God directly intervened, and even then, it would take considerable effort.)  
Not knowing what to do, out of instinct she yelped, stepped backwards, and fumbled with the dagger until it was pointed at him once again. However, gone was the strong and brave facade that she had worn earlier (albeit with mixed success). Here was a cornered lion baring its fangs in a desperate attempt to intimidate the opponent. "St-Stay back wizard!" She meekly cried out.  
For obvious reasons, the intimidation didn't work. Shirou turned and saw Arturia and frowned. Her eyes widen a bit at the side of this. 'Oh no, I've angered him, I'm done for.' These were what she thought would be her last thoughts as she trembled in fear at the demon before her.  
However, Shirou was trying desperately to come up with something to say. What else could he say but the truth, that he was a mage? And even then, how was he supposed to say it. Hey, you were right. I'm a mage, nice to meet you? Yeah right, he could almost hear Rin's teasing across dimensions at how lame that was.  
He was also frowning because, once again, she was wielding a weapon at him, and it was starting to get annoying. This must have been at least the third time today, if not more. How was he supposed to do anything if he found himself at the end of a blade every other second?  
It was unfortunate that neither he nor EMIYA were master diplomats. His plan for convincing Arturia couldn't be created when he had a knife in his face. So naturally, he promptly stepped forward and grabbed the blade out of her hand by the hilt. She was so paralyzed in fear, he was able to do it without resistance. It had seen better days and was dull and lifeless. It was only after he had examined it for a few seconds before he even realized what he had done.  
He cursed his luck, he hadn't done that consciously, she had offered no resistance at all, and so he hadn't even registered it in his mind. Yet here he stood, with a weapon and magic powers. And now he had to explain he was harmless.  
Not being able to come up with a plan he sighed and apologized, "I'm sorry for that. I wasn't thinking. I really don't want to hurt you. I'm no barbarian or assassin. I'm just Shirou Emiya, a friendly mage."  
Damn it, he didn't mean for that last part to come out like that. He could practically envision Rin rolling on the floor laughing.  
Undeterred, he continued his apology; his Japanese politeness kicked in, and he bowed deeply to her. "I'll do anything to make it up to you. Just know that I have no intentions to harm you." Shirou reassured her. Standing back up, he glanced at the dagger he still held. "Here, you can have this back now." He flipped the dagger in his hands so he held the blade once more and offered the hilt to her. He wasn't going to let anything hurt her, not on his watch.  
She wordlessly accepted the dagger back, cradling it a bit as if it were a long-lost child. She was stupefied by this turn of events. One second she was ready to meet her maker, and now not only had Shirou apologized, he had returned the dagger to her and bowed in apology. Did he know who she really was? No normal person would bow to an ordinary squire. Not only that, he had offered her a favor as an apology.  
She didn't know what to say. She slowly composed herself and thought for a second, and smiled; an idea of what she wanted for an apology had crossed her mind. She wanted to see something magical again. Merlin never showed her anything. In fact, if she didn't know from everyone else that he was a magus, she would have guessed that he was a philosopher or a wanderer of some sort. It seemed that he was actively trying to avoid exposing her to any magic. Now here was her chance to see it in action.  
"It's okay." she started, her voice still a little shaky. "I do have something in mind for that apology though."  
Shirou's eyebrow shot up. She was going to use her blank cheque here and now? He had expected her to save it, but oh well. If Arturia had asked anything without the promise he probably would have done it anyway.  
Still trying to seem as harmless as possible, he softly responded, "Anything you want."  
Her cheeks flushed red in embarrassment a second before finally asking him, "I wanted to see some more of your magic."  
'Some more magic?' Shirou thought, what was she talking about. Then he remembered his epileptic fit on the staircase and how he had healed himself. (Technically it was her magic as she was the owner of Avalon, but whatever.) While she might have not been able to see Avalon mending his body, she was able to deduce that it had been magic of some type.  
Smiling he answered, "Of course, I'd be delighted. Anything in mind."  
It was then he realized he had made a major mistake.  
Arturia seemed a bit pensive and thought for a second before slowly handing the dagger back to him. He partially held the blade, but not fully taking the dagger out of her hands, for he didn't know exactly what she wanted.  
"Do something to this dagger." came the request.  
Shirou was silently thanking whatever gods were out there. He was lucky she had asked him for a weapon related magic demonstration. If she said to do literally almost anything else, he would have had to tell her that he couldn't. Not a good first impression to make as a magus. He had no idea why he had said that, it had just spilled out of his mouth. Talking to Saber had that quality on him, and now it seemed he was suffering from the same thing talking to Arturia.  
He inspected the weapon. It really had been beat to hell. The blade was dull and the point was more of a round knob. This was probably about as dangerous as some of the butter knives he had once kept at his home. Well, at least he had only room to improve.  
________________________________________  
"Trace on"  
He closed his eyes to concentrate. Despite EMIYA's complete mastery of reinforcement, and projection, it wasn't Shirou's forte, not compared to projection; it never hurt to take extra care.  
"Composition, analyze."  
As Shirou started to analyze the object, he found the process was taking him significantly longer than normal. In addition, as soon as he started the process, he felt his magic circuits groaning and creaking like an old man's bones in the morning. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he guessed that something had changed when he his magical iron rod forced down his spine. It might take a bit for them to acclimate.  
Originally, he was going to transform the dagger into a sword, something to really amaze her, but they would be here for a few minutes if he waited for that. He would just have to settle for a structural reinforcement.  
"Basic structure, alter."  
As Arturia watched him reinforce the blade, she swore she could see lines light up and dance across the it. Immediately, all fear was replaced with a burning curiosity; she leaned in closer to get a better look at the blade. Just what was he doing?  
"Composition, reinforce."  
________________________________________  
As Shirou finished the spell and opened his eyes, Arturia examined the blade. Other than the light show, there was nothing she could observe that was different about the blade.  
She took the dagger back in order to examine it closely. What she didn't realize was that the blade was not the same as the one she had given to him.  
"Ouch!" Shirou pulled his hand back immediately. He had definitely reinforced it properly. Before, he might have been able to swallow and pass through the knife without harm; yet now as it slid over his skin, it cut like butter.  
Immediately, Shirou pulled his hand back, but it was too late. He had been cut pretty deeply and blood freely flowed from the open wound.  
Once she realized what had happened, apologies came spilling out of her mouth, "Ohmygod,I'msosorry. Ididn'tmeanto!"  
"It's okay, I'm fine." he responded, waving her off with his injured hand. He hissed a bit in pain as his hand swung through the crisp morning air. It wasn't anything serious, but nevertheless, it was still unpleasant.  
Despite the fact that he insisted he was alright, Arturia still felt a need to do something. Her interactions with Shirou seemed to alternate between threatening and inconveniencing him. She knew what to do though to treat his wounds. After all, she had had her fair share of training sessions, with her brother, but she needed something to stop the bleeding with. She didn't really want to use her own clothing; she would be locked in her room for weeks if she was found bloody and with torn clothes. Giving Shirou's clothing a once over, she came to an immediate conclusion. No way. They were filth ridden, and they almost seemed to be rotting away from his body as they stood there. With no other alternatives, she ran over to the guard and cut the ends of his clothes off, not that he would notice they were missing.  
She quickly returned to Shirou with the cloth, but was surprised at what she saw. He was simply watching as his hand bound itself back together. It was like watching a dozen seamstresses tending to his hand. Blue and gold thread wove his hand together, not even leaving a scar. She let out a breathless, "Whoa", now that was something else.  
Shirou looked up at the sound of her voice. It seemed that the she was very easily impressed by the demonstration of Avalon's powers. To be fair, it was more fascinating to watch than thrashing around (healing himself) on the stairs or a small light show that he had put on. He wondered if Merlin had not shown her anything about magic. He didn't remember any meaningful conversations with Saber about the man, but he knew that he was around somewhere. After all, who else could have put such a field on the prison to completely restrict the use of magic?  
________________________________________  
As Merlin traveled across Britain he felt a cold gale coming from the west. He doubled his pace to get back to Arturia; this was the third time she had accessed the power of Avalon today. Something was terribly wrong. Ducking down to avoid being seen by a Saxon patrol, (he really didn't have the time to fight an army today) he moved onwards.  
________________________________________  
Getting over her awe at the healing, she realized that she had still hurt him. Blushing deeply, she decided to apologize again. (and not in a panicky way this time.) He hung her head, "I apologize for cutting your hand. If there's anything I can do to…"  
She was cut off by Shirou, "Like I said, don't worry about it. I'm not mad or anything." He motioned to his hand. Not even a scar was left after Avalon had healed it. "Pretend it never even happened."  
She laughed a bit at this, she was glad that he wasn't mad at her. Even if he wasn't out to kill her, it wouldn't be the best idea angering mages at random. Eager to change the subject, she asked him the only thing she could think of, "Soo.. can you do anything else?" It was kind of rude, but hey; she had never seen a magic demo before and he did say he would do anything for her.  
Now it was his turn to blush a bit, "Not much really, almost all of my magic is related to swords. I can summon swords and change the property of objects, but that's about it." While he was good at what he did, he had a niche skill set. Especially when compared to other magi EMIYA had known.  
Immediately this got her attention. 'I can only summon swords and change objects?' That wasn't a limitation; it was a gift. She was immediately in the mindset of a future king Here was God's answer to the Groan of the Britons placed right in her lap.  
The Groan of the Britons was a plea to the Roman Empire years ago. The original was a plea for help protection from the Picts, but the danger had not passed. In fact, it had only gotten worse over the years. Just the other day, there had been a raid in force in the surrounding countryside. The message was a one of despair, it was a pitiful plea for help, and now they were on the brink of destruction. The barbarians were driving Arturia and the rest of the Britons into the sea. Likewise, the sea was busy driving them to the barbarians. Between these two means of death, they had to choose, either to be destroyed by barbarians or drowned by the sea.  
But no more, here was the solution to their dilemma. For many nights she had worried about Merlin's prophesy that the person who drew the magical sword Caliburn out of the stone would become the next King of Britain. She had seen the sword, even held its hilt, and it had told her, the son of Uther Pendragon, 'Not yet.' Not yet, meant eventually, and as the barbarians had pushed farther and farther west she was worried about what she would even do to save Britain. She could only do so much by working together with the knights of the realm. Men and muscle could only help her so much, but now everything had changed. Now she had a wizard.  
Not yet, the same words echoed in her head. She was not yet the King of Britain. She would still have to wait until the sword deemed her ready to lead the people. However, she knew that it must happen soon. She had heard from her brother that a grand joust was being planned in order to find a king if one wasn't found soon. However, the sword's mantra was twofold. She still had to actually get this magus to fight the Anglo-Saxons for her. Not killing her was one thing, fealty or an alliance was another story.  
However, she was still intrigued by the self-depreciating mage. "What else can you do?" Seeing the look of confusion on his face, after all she had asked basically the same question twice in a row now, she corrected herself. "Not magical powers, but umm.." she struggled to find an appropriate term, "Aha! Mundane skills. Like blacksmithing or horseback riding."  
Shirou had to think on that for a second. What was he good at? Well he was good at many things, housework, repairing electronics, and taming Tigers, to name a few examples, but these wouldn't be helpful or relevant to Arturia at all. Once again, he asked himself. What was he good at and was it actually useful?  
Archery was the first thing he thought of. He hadn't done it in a while, but between the muscle memory of practicing at the Kyudojo and EMIYA's knowledge of the art, he was sure he could become a greater archer than Robin Hood if he put some effort into it.  
He started his verbal resume, "I'd say that I'm a pretty good archer. I'm a bit rusty though."  
Arturia hummed a bit, Archery was a good skill that one didn't forget easily. She eyed his arms a bit curiously, he wouldn't be doing any shooting with those muscles, or more specifically, the lack thereof, anytime soon.  
He paused to think again. History was another. He had some exposure at school and had now been imbued with a vast amount of knowledge from EMIYA's memories of research. However, the usefulness of this one was a bit more dubious as he was subject to change the future with every action. For instance, he was certain that knowing that Napoleon would freeze his army to death in Russia was worthless, as was pretty sure that history wouldn't unfold that way again. However, certain parts of history didn't change. Military tactics from ancient eras and future ages could be adapted and improved upon. It might give them an edge or two. So, if he ever found himself having to invade Russia, escaping before the winter would probably be a good idea.  
He realized that anything he had learned in school was probably leagues ahead of what one could learn in Dark Age Britain. However, some of it he had ignored or forgotten as he, like all students, had fallen victim to the most important question. 'How exactly is this useful?' trap was the common conclusion of 'It's not.'.  
He continued, "As well as military history, and mathematics I guess."  
She nodded in approval, if she could manage to convince him to fight, Shirou would make an excellent battlemage or logistician from what he reported he could do. Leading from the front with magic or from the rear with tactics and mathematics, a pseudo-magic in the hands of a brilliant strategist or logistician. Someone who could singlehandedly change the fate of a campaign, what a powerful advantage.  
It was then he remembered the greatest thing he could do for Arturia (outside of magic and combat).  
As if fate was listening to his thoughts, it was then that Arturia's stomach grumbled. Like a hungry lion, it announced to the world that it was time to eat. She looked at Shirou with wide eyes before she immediately hung her head low to try to spread the spreading blush that raced across her face, but to no avail.  
Shirou looked at her with a mix of wonder and amusement, a poorly repressed smile plastered across his face. He had never heard such a loud stomach rumble. Not even from Saber. He knew from just looking at Arturia that she wasn't as old as Saber was when she had appeared to him in the Holy Grail War. He assumed that this version of her would be at least as ravenous as Saber, if not more. A growing human was practically a walking, talking garbage disposal service.  
"I guess it's about time to eat, but no will be up for a while still." Arturia looked off towards the horizon, Shirou assumed that she was telling the time from the sun. Something that he noted to ask about later. Dawn, morning, afternoon, evening, dusk, night, that was pretty much all the could tell by looking at the sky.  
At the same time his stomach decided to join the choir as well. He laughed, if there was one thing he and Saber were always in agreement over, it was that a good meal was never too far away. "I suppose it's time to eat then. You said there was not many people awake yet, do you have anything else to eat?"  
She solemnly shook her head no, there wasn't anything else than the bread she had gotten from Einion. He probably would have some more food to eat, but A. she wasn't sure that he would be too receptive to her and Shirou coming in and raiding his provisions, and B. she really didn't feel like being teased for her appetite by the old man.  
He smiled once more, he would have to make his last talent his most valued, "I do have one last skill and I know you asked for skills not magic based. It's something that's not real magic, but it's about as close as you can get. Call it magic-lite™" he led her on.  
Happy that he was changing the subject from her stomach's protests. She asked, her curiosity piqued. "What is it?"  
His smile grew to threaten to cover the entirety of his face, "I bet that I'm the best chef in the entire kingdom, no all of Britain."  
Arturia blinked a bit in surprise, she had not expected that to round off his skill set. Additionally, he sounded awfully confident with that claim. She would have to put it to the test. "Oh yea? I'll believe it when I see it."  
He was definitely ready to back up his claim. "Let me prove it to you. I'll make you the best thing you've ever tasted."  
"That can be arranged. C'mon this way." She told him, her tone contained a hint smugness. She had never heard of a warrior chef, but she was hoping that he was an amazing cook like he promised. She was hungry.  
________________________________________  
A few minutes later he found himself in a kitchen, but he failed to take into account how different the kitchen would be from the one he was used to. Also, he didn't have anything to cook with. He also realized many ingredients would be unavailable to him in this time and place.  
He'd just have to settle for a simple Western egg dish. Perhaps he would try an omelet. Surely, he could find some eggs, and butter, and cheese. He asked Arturia if it was possible to get some. She realized that he wouldn't know where to find them and it would be faster to get them herself than explain to him where they were. "Sure! I'll be right back!" she cried as she ran out of the room.  
He tore through the kitchen as he tried to find some ingredients to cook with. Well something that wasn't rotten. This kitchen was disgusting. It was as if no one had cleaned this place properly in years. It wasn't the worst, some of the NEETS from his own age could easily rival the filth, but he wasn't cooking with any of this soon. Still it was a wonder that no one had gotten sick. First off, he found a kettle and boiled some water to sanitize things with. He was no hypochondriac, but all the surfaces, equipment, utensils, would have to be cleaned or he might have a panic attack.  
Still, the most pressing issue was the lack of any quality ingredients to cook with. What you put in is what you got out and at this rate he would be better off serving the dungeon slop. Hopefully Arturia would know where to find some stuff, and if not…  
"Got yourself in a little over your head, huh?" he suddenly head Gaia's voice echo through his head.  
He didn't consciously respond, but the Earth could still understand that Shirou was in way over his head.  
"I have a deal for you." Gaia told him. "Are you willing to sell your soul for ingredients?"  
"Not funny," he retorted, "Now do you actually want to help or are you just here to torment me?"  
"A little of column A, a little of column B" came the reply. Shirou groaned at this, why did both Alaya and Gaia have to torment him like they were children.  
Gaia indignantly defended himself, "Hey don't go comparing me to Alaya now or I'll transfer back the contract to her."  
Shirou narrowed his eyes, "You wouldn't."  
"Watch me child." Came the ominous reply.  
Shaking off the shiver that had run down his back, he got back to Gaia's joke deal. "I don't know if there are such things as souls, but fell just a bit uncomfortable agreeing to give it away. Are there any… lesser terms you'd accept?"  
Gaia thought for a second, "Well… I suppose I can give a little ground. I give you ingredients, you have to give me a portion."  
Shirou's brain broke for a second. Give him a portion? Why? And more importantly, how?  
Sometimes he was glad Gaia and Alaya could read thoughts, sometimes it was irritating, but it saved him from situations like this. "Well when I received your contract, I was able to go through some of your memories, the food you cooked all your life looks unlike anything I've seen before and combining and preparing it looks like it would be a lot better than the raw material that I can grow. I don't really need it, but neither did Saber, and she seemed to enjoy it alright. I figured I'd like a taste."  
"Okay…" Shirou started, this was an unexpected turn of events. "But how exactly do I get the food to your dimension?"  
Gaia stated the answer as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "How else has man delivered to the gods? You burn it in sacrifice."  
Sweat dropping a bit at this, Shirou quickly shook it off. Considering everything, it was a pretty great deal. Make an extra portion in exchange for free ingredients? He would take that deal every day of the week. "You've got yourself a deal Gaia. How do I get the ingredients though?"  
He could feel Gaia grinning at him, "Excellent. Just ask the Earth, and you will receive any plant you need. Make sure you're outside though, it will destroy the floor."  
A thought crossed his mind, "What if I need some meat?"  
Gaia quickly gave an excuse, "Sorry, only plant based ingredients. You know it kind of hurts to watch my creatures get slaughtered by humans, delicious or not."  
It only figured that he was a vegan.  
It was then Arturia returned from wherever she had gone off to. She came in breathlessly, it seemed that she was in a hurry to get some food into her body. She handed the eggs to him. "Here *pant* you go *pant*."  
He thanked her and took the eggs and set them on the table. Now he had to gather the rest of the ingredients.  
Naturally he turned to Arturia and asked her for more stuff. Specifically, he needed what Gaia was unwilling to provide, butter, cheese, and some ham if there was any.  
Arturia was happy to get them for him (and inevitably they were also for her). She was just glad they were close by in a cold room and not out on the outskirts of the castle. Grabbing them she returned to the kitchen.  
He also had found a pan he could use. It was rough and crude compared to the ones he was used to, but it would do for now. He cracked the eggs and whisked them in a bowl, started to melt the butter and went to cut the ham. However, this was dried ham and was tough and difficult to cut. With the kitchen knife he had found, it was like trying to saw his way though. While he could reinforce the knife, he didn't particularly feel like abusing magic for something so mundane.  
Arturia was busy watching his cook. It took only a second before a thought crossed her mind. What was this? Was it a joke or did he really going to make her eggs and ham? She could have done that by herself.  
"Can I borrow your knife?" Shirou asked her. It would go by so much faster if he had it. Perhaps he could actually cut through this jerky-like pork. Cutting into it he found it cut like butter. Getting into his groove, he returned to the food preparation.  
Arturia had been restraining herself out of politeness. She was grateful that he was cooking, sure. After all she probably would have burned down the castle, but Shirou said he was the best cook. However, when she watched him, she found that what she had observed was pretty mediocre. It was then that he walked over the window, and… What was he doing? Was he asking for something from god? After a few seconds, the earth started to bubble. Suddenly, plants and rocks started to emerge from the earth. More magic. That explained it.  
Shirou was pleasantly surprised by what had been given by Gaia. Onion, pepper, salt, and cilantro were apparently things Gaia decided he wanted on his omelet. Additionally, he found new world plants like tomatoes and bell peppers before him as well. Good, he was worried that he would have to personally sail to America to get items like these.  
Gathering his bountiful harvest, he returned to his station and started to cook the dish. Soon he found himself in his trancelike state whenever he cooked.  
Arturia watched him cook with fascination. She had never seen some of these ingredients at all, while others, like the black pepper, had only heard of from the rich merchants that occasionally passed by. Despite being intoxicated by the smells, she was a teensy bit miffed; he had lied to her, said his cooking wasn't magic. Well he said it was magic light or something like that, whatever that meant. Additionally, it wasn't technically magic as he had cooked the dish by hand, but she didn't care. She was too hungry.  
Eventually a delicious looking dish found itself on the plate in front of her. It looked and smelled so good. Looking at Shirou as if to get permission to eat, he smiled and nodded. Without hesitation she bit into the omelet. Her hand trembling a bit in anticipation as it delivered the food to her salivating mouth.  
And it was heaven. ________________________________________________________________________________  
________________________________________  
0 ∪ ∞ Holocene Era (Unknown Location)  
Alaya watched from the heavens at the unfolding scene through clouded and bloodshot eyes. It shouldn’t have come to this, but she had been forced to act and this was the result. She had learned from the timelines that used to be that the entity that was known as EMIYA Shirou was a danger to humanity. By trying to save as many individuals as possible, trying to become a Hero of Justice, he had placed the whole human experiment in danger. Now he had forged an alliance with Gaia, her rival and competitor in order to save himself. This madness must end now.   
She had watched over his memories and experiences and had found the way to achieve this. It related to that all self-righteous king, Arturia Pendragon. It seemed that despite that claiming to desire to save humankind, deep in his heart he only desired to save the Knight-King of Cornwall.   
However, she had encounter a problem. She couldn’t send a counter guardian in to destroy them all. Direct interference was probably what had caused the timelines to converge in the first place. Secondly, Gaia would surely intervene against her; she wasn’t sure if Gaia’s new pet was just a passing curiosity or if he actually had a plan for Shirou.   
Even if direct destruction was out of the question. Subtle nudging was a still a viable option. A butterfly flaps its wings and several years later the Kingdom of the Britain is utterly destroyed. That was the plan anyways, and she was sure it would work. The only issue was that she had some difficulty in finding just how to so subtly tweak the timeline so that it would work. Intervening in Britain would fail as Stonehenge was a basin of power for the blasted Magus of Flowers, Merlin. He and Shirou would surely be able to respond to any dangers efficiently enough. If Gaia lifted a finger, she would lose the initiative.   
However, the island of Great Britain was ultimately to be the location for her plan. For now, it was their bastion of power, their protection from her, but one day it would also become their isolated prison, and the location of their trial and judgement by her, the judge and the jury. And most importantly, it would become their place of execution.   
She had found the perfect place to plant the seeds of destruction. A little nudge, that’s all it took. In continental Europe she had changed one thing. She had changed everything. Forever. Setting aside her thoughts, she returned to watching the scene unfold. ________________________________________  
Across the seas, a child lay in its crib, still and cold. The mother was forced from the room, servants pulling her away from the corpse of the child. The sound of her wailing echoed down the cold stone hallways of the castle. Watching over the scene, the father shook his head. This was the second child that had died in this manner, and he was starting to grow tired of his wife’s antics. She had prayed, no begged for this child’s survival and what did it get her? Nothing. He turned and left the room. He had now had to announce that yet another child had died. And thus, Clovis I, King of the Franks, hardened his heart. He would never humor his wife and listen to her arguments again. No child of his would be baptized in the name of the Christian God. This he swore. This Christianity she had been talking about must be a fraudulent religion, for it had only brought him bad luck. ________________________________________________________________________________  
486 CE Dunmonia/Cornwall  
Meanwhile, Arturia Pendragon sat in the kitchen, dead. She had died and was sent to heaven after ingesting the fluffy, rich, succulent egg dish that was placed before her. She was lucky she had a table to support herself on, for she might have collapsed without it. She had never tasted something this good. She didn’t know that something could taste this good. She silently apologized to Shirou for ever doubting him, Magic or no, he had proved his claim. He was truly the best cook in Britain.   
She suddenly thought about the consequences. The cooks that Sir Ector had hired were only pale imitations of Shirou. Would she be no longer to eat anything without comparing it to his cooking? This was a dangerous road she walked.   
Speaking of Shirou she looked to him. He had still to touch his food. Instead he had made a third serving and she watched curiously as he walked over to the pot of boiling water and the fire pit.   
Then he burned it.  
The sight of it brought her crashing back to Earth. It was a painful too, her heart broke at the sight of the omelet turning to ash. Before she even realized it, she let out a sob and yelled at him, “What are you doing! I would have eaten that.”   
Surprised at her outburst, Shirou turned to her and began to explain, but was taken aback by the tears threatening to spill out of her eyes, “I was uhh…” How was he exactly to explain what he did? Wracking his brain, he found a metaphor to something she would be familiar with. “You know, making a sacrifice.” He answered lamely. He shot her a nervous smile as she switched from grieving to murderous intent, casting an angry look to him.   
First of all, Arturia was slightly surprised to hear that he was making a sacrifice. Surely, he meant a pagan sacrifice? She was pretty sure he was now actively trying to persuade her that he was a barbarian of some sort. She wasn’t too concerned though; if he had wanted to kill her, he could have found dozens of opportunities, yet he never took them. (If she had to pick a way, it would be to be served a poisoned meal of his. If it was as good as breakfast, it would be worth it… Probably.)  
Secondly, and more importantly, she was pissed about the fact that he had sacrificed a delicious omelet. Weren’t pagan gods supposed to receive animals for gifts? And even then, it was supposed to be a head or some inedible part, was it not? What kind of god deserved a gift like this? Whoever they were, they could screw off.  
She jumped as a strong breeze slammed the kitchen door shut, startling her. A shiver went down her spine at the sudden chill, but she ignored it and turned to Shirou. “What heathen god demands such delicious food for a sacrifice?” She demanded an answer from him.   
He risked the wrath of the devil and ignored her for a second. If he waited any longer, his food would get cold. Gaia’s windy scare tactic had already chilled his food a bit. “Itadakimasu.”   
There was that word again, Arturia didn’t know what it meant, but it was obvious that it was something he said before eating. She was willing to let him ignore her for a bit, he deserved to eat after all. However, she wanted to know what the foreign word meant and she asked him. “What does that mean? Is it like saying grace to your gods?”  
Shirou began to eat his first proper meal in weeks. It was pretty good, not too strong, but still flavorful. He was grateful to Gaia for the variety of ingredients. Between mouthfuls they conversed, “It means many different things to different people. To me it means ‘thanks for the food’, but it’s not a grace to God. It’s more of a, I’m thankful that I can eat this meal today.”   
Arturia nodded her head in understanding. “Yes, it is important to always be thankful, but if you aren’t thanking a god for the food, why sacrifice the extra serving?”  
Shirou recognized the catch-22 he had been placed in. He either admitted that he sacrificed to pagan gods or rejected religion altogether, after all one doesn’t go about making sacrifices to Jesus. Both of these were terrible answer to give. Religion was something that was a part of the cultural identity of every human being of this age. People argued over how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, people went to war over it. As his brain worked to think of something to say he recalled a scolding that he had once received. ________________________________________  
It was so tangential and stupid, but it now would save him. Once he and Issei had had a school project when they were little. It was near the time of a Shinto festival and they had tell a story about a Shinto god. It had recently stormed and so Issei had become fascinated with Raijin and Fūjin. Needless to say, when he and Issei and him had told their classmates about how they had sent tsunamis to save Japan from the Mongols, they received a stern talking from Fuji-Nee about why shouting ‘kamikaze’ out loud wasn’t the greatest idea.   
Connected (barely) to that was the Mongols, who let anyone worship basically every god in a sort of ‘Everyone can worship their god (but don’t forget to ask for the Khan to be healthy) in the hopes that one of them is the real god.’ He could use to get out of this, hopefully. It might be stupid.   
No, it was stupid. What was he talking about, but he couldn’t he couldn’t think of anything else for the life of him. It was literally the only thing he had to work with now that it had wormed its way into his head, and ow it was the only chance he had. ________________________________________  
As he explained this to her, she was confused at first, then astonished, however as she tried to process the illogical thought, a stray giggle escaped her mouth. She began to laugh a bit more at the idea. It was so absurd to her. Worship and thank everyone? What an odd notion. It was self-conflicting at best, outright heresy at its worst. While a few days ago she would have asked more about his fallacy filled argument, she decided to look the other way. Any god who made such a fine meal possible might be worth consideration.   
She laughed again clutching her sides a bit and asked sarcastically, “Ow, ow ow. Well then? Which god am I to thank for my meal?” She collapsed back into a fit of giggles.  
Shirou wasn’t sure what was going on. It seemed that Arturia had been hit with what he called “Tohsaka Syndrome” where someone, usually a woman (and almost exclusively Rin, but Sakura wasn’t immune either) would just start laughing for no reason at something he said. ‘Women are weird’ He thought, but he shrugged his shoulders and smiled back, “Take your pick.” Relived to have just escaped the question, he noted that he would have to think about a serious answer and discuss it when the time was right. This problem would only rear its ugly head again someday, and he knew that reveling Gaia’s existence wasn’t something he should do. For now, he just asked her what exactly was so funny. Maybe he could diagnose her mental illness.   
Wiping some food and tears from her face she replied, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve never meet someone as odd as you. You know?”  
Before he had a chance to respond Sir Kay burst into the kitchen. Perhaps he had been drawn by the smell of the food, but it was probably the sense of danger that he sensed from Shirou that drew him in to investigate. It also might have had to do with the fact that he saw Shirou through the window when passing by.   
Kay was a tall imposing figure, towering over both Shirou and Arturia. He had slightly red hair, but nowhere near as red as Shirou’s, and had brown and piercing eyes, which were busy burrowing their way into Shirou. “I see that you have let the enemy inside the house Arthur. We’ll discuss this later.” He spoke to her without taking his eyes off Shirou, he then drew his sword and pointed it at Shirou, “For now, surrender mage, you shall lay no hand on my brother! I will not allow it!”   
Shirou had no desire to be smacked across the floor and knocked unconscious like their first encounter. Luckily for him, he could speak Brythonic this time, and not Japanese.  
He glanced to Arturia, she had an exasperated look on her face as though as she dealt with this on a regular basis. “He wasn’t harming me. He made me food! Also, we were only talking! What’s wrong with that.”  
It was then that Einion walked into the kitchen, “I heard it all. You think that he is some innocent simpleton who wouldn’t hurt a fly? Think again. Not only is he a mage, and an assassin, but also a heretic from what I heard. I disapprove of your decision to remove him from the cell. Arturia, I must say I am disappointed with you.”  
Shirou’s first thought was, ‘If he heard, why didn’t he say anything to Kay about me not trying to harm he?’. His first impression of this man was shaping out well, perhaps as bad as the errant knight who was busy alternating between scolding Arturia and threatening him.   
However, Shirou found that he had new bigger problems on his hands. After a few minutes of squabbling, a low groaning sound could be heard from the horizon. Shirou wondered what it was. Kay reacted instantly, his sword being redirected from Shirou to the outside. “Barbarians.” was the only word whispered. It was the sound of a war horn. ________________________________________  
Thanks for reading, leave a review, and follow. Favorite if you loved it. And as always, make sure to enjoy reading and come back for more!  
*Un-related to Hitler’s Aryanism. Go watch The Producers if you were slightly triggered at all.


End file.
